


Two Points Between

by tsukinofaerii



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pern, Dragons, Gen, Kidnapping, suicide (nonhuman)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 10:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2578010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukinofaerii/pseuds/tsukinofaerii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bronze rider Derek's world is upside down. Mystery dragons and mystery girls. Holds that aren't on the maps. Thread falling where no Thread should. Dragon eggs in danger, and Weyrleaders seemingly uninterested in following the only clues they have. He doesn't know what's going on, but he's going to find out. </p><p>Scott never intended to be adventurous, but somehow when he was with Stiles it happened anyway, starting with their boyhood in Fort Hold and continuing into their different apprenticeships. Neither of them expected their latest adventure to get them caught up with dragons and, even worse, dragon eggs. Thread is just the start of their problems. </p><p>Everything is connected, and when you're on dragonback the shortest distance between two points is seldom a straight line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daunt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daunt/gifts).



> If you're unfamiliar with Pern, I did [a quick write-up](http://tsukinoniwa.livejournal.com/34724.html) aaaages ago on an old LJ that you might find handy.
> 
> With massive amounts of thanks to WateroftheMoon, who did a beta on this for me so I could post it for the Full Moon. Written for Daunt, who shot the piss with me about a Teen Wolf/Pern crossover on Twitter. I _did_ say that writing Pern fic is inevitable for me.
> 
> This fic roughly takes place in the 7th Pass. Please note that I changed a couple basics of Pern culture and dragons. In this fic any sex can impress any color dragon, the prohibition of women in Crafts that existed between the 5th Pass and the 9th Pass doesn't exist. Finally, I dropped the apostrophe honorific for dragon riders. I tried, y'all, but I could only manage 30 pages of "D'rek" before I died laughing. Other than those points, this fic follows the Dragon Lover's Guide. (You'll pry my airplane sized dragons from my cold dead hands.)
> 
> For information on the character deaths, see the end notes of chapter 6.

The entire Weyr felt it, a wave of anguish rippling through human and dragon alike. Derek sat up in bed, gasping for air that wouldn't come. The mattress dropped out from under him, and the ceiling spiraled away. For a moment, he was somewhere dark and hot, pressed in on all sides, a feeling of someone else's utter shock and disbelief churning in his gullet, grit under his cheek. Pain. Betrayal. 

A dragon's scream of rage. 

Derek staggered naked out of bed and to the ledge, grabbing his bronze's forearm to stay upright when his legs wanted to crumble. Two dragons tangled in the night sky over the weyrbowl, eyes burning red. Moonlight bleached their hides, but not enough to hide the golden sheen. One of them, the bigger one, cried out and fell away, wings beating frantically. Its rider clung to its back, barely visible except as a shadow. 

_Niath, who is it?_ Derek fought to keep the dragons in sight as they fell together in a writhing knot of wings and limbs. They broke apart just in time to keep from slamming into the ground, gliding upward only to lunge at each other once more. Their riders clung low to their necks like grim death as their dragons clashed again.

 _I don't know!_ Niath strained forward on his ledge, eyes whirling yellow with distress. _They feel familiar, but they're too angry. I don't know who they are!_

The smaller queen tried to force her opponent down. The bigger one twisted away, raking her claws across her attacker's chest. Leathers came loose, and the rider slipped. White cloth fluttered around her legs and she grabbed desperately for a neck ridge. 

Triumphant, the bigger dragon tore free and soared skyward and then flitted _between_. 

Blue dragons circled below, poised to catch the rider if they fell. Impossibly, the rider pulled themselves back up. As soon as her rider was secure, the smaller dragon screamed in fury and vanished _between_. Collectively, the Weyr held its breath. 

Slowly, a great, aching keen rumbled up from the very bones of the bowl, laden with misery and loss like nothing else. Niath threw his head back and added his voice to the song. He leaned forward and tipped over the ledge, wings snapping out just in time to catch him. Every other dragon in Fort Weyr was doing the same, taking to the night air in a clamor of wings and gleaming yellow eyes. Together they circled, weaving in and out, hides a mess of silvery shadows in the double moons' light. 

Derek waited, watching the sky, seeing others do the same in the corner of his eye. Children in night shirts stumbled out of the lower caverns to line the edge of bowl. Weyrlings came out of their barrack. Those whose dragons were too young to fly craned their necks upward, wings stretched to cover their riders protectively, eyes yellow and red lamps in the dark. The air cut the skin , sharp with an early spring chill. Still, no one ducked back inside, no one looked away from the sky. 

In the space between two heartbeats, a dragon burst into existence in the center of the loop of mourners—another queen, or perhaps one of the same. She careened sideways, wings beating slowly, barely enough to hold her in the air, ribs sharply visible under her hide. Someone clung to her neck, barely hanging on to the riding straps as the dragon listed and spiraled down to the weyrbowl.

His legs moved before the rest of him had decided what to do yet. He sprinted out of his weyr and down the hall, around the curving stairs. The last, sharp turn out into the open bowl almost did him in when he tripped over his own feet taking it, but quick reflexes saved him from more than a bruised knee. He scrambled back to his feet and forward. 

Other riders were already there, clustered like flies on a carcass. Their glow baskets blinded him after so long squinting into the darkness. Derek cursed and shoved his way through them to the front, shading his eyes so he could see. 

The queen was just laying down her burden: a young red-haired woman, her back blistered from shoulders to waist. The dragon herself was gaunt and gray, hide hanging off her bones. Cora and another blue rider rushed forward to check the girl, making the gold hiss and claw her way backwards. Her head snaked back and forth, teeth bared in threat. 

Atop her, the rider—a boy, barely old enough to shave, dressed in a worn blue tunic—cupped his hands around his mouth, "We think we're in Igen! Beacon Hold! Wherever—" The queen moved, wings already half-spread to take back to the air. He slipped and grabbed for the riding harness, holding himself in place by force of muscle alone. "Wherever Thread fell yesterday!" 

"Thread was over High Reaches yesterday!" Derek yelled back, but the queen was already springing, snapping her wings wide to lumber up into the air. If the rider heard, he didn't give any sign. Boy and dragon vanished _between_ , leaving nothing but empty air and questions. 

Across the Weyr bowl, dragons keened their grief, voices sinking into the stone to make it seem as if the whole Weyr shook. 

_We can't feel her,_ Niath told Derek, his distress a palpable, churning mass in his chest, sharp and rending. Not hollow, as a death would bring, but close. _She's gone._

 _Gone_ between _?_ Derek asked, watching as people converged on the unconscious girl. Laura forced her way to the front, barking out orders. Another person—it sounded like Peter—called for Weyrwoman Talia and Weyrleader Dracen to be brought back from Fort Hold. A pair of boys from the lower caverns were already bring a sheet to turn into a litter, and someone was talking about how she hadn't even had numbweed applied, and there was sand all in her wounds and what had the healers been thinking? 

Derek allowed the press of people to shove to the back of the crowd. But even though he was undoubtedly in the way, he was rooted in place. 

_No,_ Niath answered eventually, uncertainty making his voice soft. _Just gone._

* * *

Healer Hall was loaded with springtime quiet. It was far enough into the hot season that farmhand injuries weren't as common, the planting mostly done, but the summer illnesses hadn't yet swept in to fill the beds. Masters and journeymen had, for the most part, sought their beds, leaving apprentices to maintain watch on the few who remained. Since no Thread or bad weather was due, the metal shutters had been thrown open, on the theory that warm night air was healthy. Or, at least, that it wasn't _un_ healthy. 

Scott yawned, eyelids heavy. He was one of the unlucky ones on rotation that night. None of the patients had roused for over an hour, and none of them in this ward had the type of hurt that required constant care. At the main desk, even Journeywoman Ellana was mostly asleep, her quill pen listing to the side and leaving an ugly smear on the hide she was recording on. He was close enough to the windows that a warm breeze only made matters worse. Just then, he would have given a pocketful of marks to be able to go to bed.

A sharp, hard thump rattled them all from their doze. Sleepy apprentices jumped, and the Journeywoman nearly fell from her chair in her haste to look alert. Even some of the less ill patients roused, pushing up in their beds. 

There was a pause as everyone mentally calculated the source and realized that, rather than coming from the hall, it was outside. Scott was one of the first at the window, leaning half his body out to peer around the grounds. Nothing was in sight, no fires or suspicious shadows. Only the stars in the moonless sky. 

"Hey!" Other apprentices jostled him as they scrambled to see over his shoulder. Scott grabbed for the shutter to balance as he was scooted further up the window ledge. His knees locked under the edge, keeping him from leaning more. It was a long drop down to the courtyard below, a dragonlength or more. He didn't fancy finding out exactly how far.

"All of you, get back!" Ellana snapped, softly so it wouldn't wake the remaining sleepers. She grabbed the backs of tunics and dragged them away so she could look for herself. It was only a quick glance, though, before she was pulling back in. "I'm going to go talk to the guards. You lot stay here, and mind your beds. If I find you've neglected them, the Masterhealer will hear of it." While they were still saying their _ayes_ , Ellana turned and stormed out. As she closed the door in her wake, she failed to hide a large yawn behind her hand.

"You think she's really going to talk to the guards?" a small, red-haired boy asked, mouth twisted cynically. 

"She's just going to go for a walkabout somewhere cool," another one grumbled. There was a cluster of nods, but they all dispersed back to their places anyway. Fear of the Masterhealer was no small argument. 

Especially in Scott's case, since she happened to be his mother. 

The water clock dripped on, sending the minutes into the past one drop at a time. The sleepy air of the healing ward was long gone, though. Every apprentice who could found an excuse to go to the window and peek out. A few times, there were some more noises—the cry of frightened herdbeasts, a shout from someone below, but nothing truly alarming. 

Ellana returned just before the water clock dropped to indicate midnight. She was bright-eyed and wide awake, throwing the doors open as a new team of apprentices slogged in, rubbing their eyes. "All right, shift's over. To bed with you all." 

Together the first evening shift scrambled for the door, leaving their posts gladly. Scott trailed behind the other boys as they split for the dorms, stifling a yawn behind his hand. The glowbaskets had been mostly closed, only a dim light left to fill the halls as they shuffled toward sleep.

On the last turn before the final stairs, someone grabbed the back of Scott's tunic and yanked. He yelped, falling sideways into a bag of bones in thin hide hidden under the stairwell. A hand slapped over his mouth.

"Shh, someone will hear you," a familiar voice hissed in his ear. 

"Stiles," Scott grumbled, or tried to under his friend's palm. His skin smelled like chalk and wood oil, ink and leather, and tasted like all of those. Yanking around, he glared at the mole-speckled face of his best friend. "You scared me to death!"

"You'd have gotten over it." A pile of grey cloth was shoved into Scott's face, blinding him. While he fought his way free, Stiles fought harder, eventually getting the cloak around his shoulders and the hood up. He straightened it the way mothers did, tugging so firmly that Scott's head yanked around. "Come on, we're going on an adventure."

"No—Stiles, I need to get to—" Scott dug in his heels, saving himself from being yanked out of the safety of the stairwell. Once he was in the hall, he knew, he might as well be done for. Give a finger length, and Stiles would take a league. Already he was sweating under the hood, skin itching for a cool breeze. "I need to _sleep_! Do harpers not do that? Sleep?" 

But Stiles' eyes were bright, and he was nearly bouncing in his boots. "There's time for sleep later. We're going to go find a dragon."

* * *

Even on a warm spring night, the walls beyond Fort Hold were chilly. The breeze was constant, blowing Scott's cloak around his ankles and giving some relief from the heat. Stiles scrambled ahead, harper blue cloak blending into the night. The lights of Gather Square were far behind, a bare twinkle. They stayed away from the road, following paths worn by generations of apprentices sneaking out before them. 

Scott hoped getting back in would be as easy as getting out. "Are you sure you saw a dragon?" he demanded tiredly, craning his head up, as if he'd be greeted by dragon wings blocking out the sky. "Why would a dragon be out here? Why not land at the Hold?"

"I didn't see a dragon. My father saw a dragon," Stiles corrected absently. There wasn't enough light to tell, but Scott would have bet that he was grinning. "And I don't know why a dragon would be out in the fields. That's why we're going to go look."

"Why we're going to end up on kitchen duty for the next three Gathers, you mean," Scott grumbled. They ducked into the shadow of a cothold, rocks skittering under their feet. Something was tickling in the back of his head, an itchy sensation that his nails couldn't reach. He tried anyway, digging them in, but it was on the inside of his skull. "Where did he—"

Stiles stopped so suddenly that Scott nearly slammed into his back. In the dark, a murky yellow ball glowed like a lamp. It took a second for Scott to see the details, to pick out faucets and ridges. A thin layer of membrane peeled away, leaving the dragon eye unfiltered and gleaming. In his mind's eye, the shadowed the cothold shifted. Cellar doors coalesced into a limb. Eaves turned into the edge of a wing bone.

"We're sorry!" Scott moved while Stiles was still frozen, grabbing his friend's arm and stumbling back. Loose dirt and rocks skittered underfoot, making them stagger and wobble against each other like drunkards. "We're so—we didn't mean to!" 

"We were just curious!" Stiles added, clinging to Scott as they finally reached what seemed like a somewhat respectful distance. 

The dragon just watched them without even so much as turning its head or twitching a wing. Its eye rolled, colors faded and dulled. Slowly, one of the lids slid closed again. It heaved a sigh, hot breath rancid with old meat. The itch in Scott's skull turned duller, peeled away and left a raw feeling behind. 

A shoulder bumped Scott's urgently. "Where's its rider?" Stiles whispered in his ear, too loud for actual discretion. Not that it matted; everyone knew dragons could hear for days. 

"How should I know?" Scott worried his lip between his teeth. It was dark, and he was no weyrhealer, but... He shook off Stiles' arm and inched forward, ignoring the hands that tried to grab him back to safety. The dragon didn't try to stop him, even when he got right up under the arch its neck. Hoping that he wasn't about to break some weird Weyr law and have to face a rider in a duel, he reached up to run his hand over the dragon's forearm. Its hide was cool and dry, almost scaly where it thinned out over the knee joint. "I think it's sick."

"Dragons don't get sick." The mix of pale skin and slightly off shadows that was Stiles edged closer to the dragon's head. "And if it's sick, shouldn't its rider be here?" 

"I don't know!" Keeping his hand on the leg, Scott followed it up to the elbow joint, pressing his hand against the prominent curve of rib behind it. Runners had a pulse just behind their foreleg; he knew that much from playing around in the stables as a boy. So did herdbeasts, and a lot of other four-legged creatures. It made sense that dragons might, too. 

He found the spot higher up than expected, so high he had to stretch for it, and at sixteen turns, he wasn't a child anymore. It was steady, at least he could tell that much. Not speeding, not seeming to slow down. It seemed a little slow, but Scott didn't know how fast dragon hearts should normally be. 

Muscles went tense. The dragon lifted its head, bumping its nose under Stiles' outstretched palm. As he slowly stroked its nose, the last two lids closed, turning it into nothing more than a large shadow again. Only the pulse under Scott's hand and the slow rise and fall of ribs indicated that it was even still alive. 

"What are we going to do?" Stiles asked quietly. He stepped in closer, rubbing at the dragon's cheek. "We can't just leave it—him? Here." 

Scott looked up the dragon's side. There was a harness, so its rider had to be somewhere, but... "I'll go get my mother. You stay here and keep it company."

"What? You're not—"

"Just stay!" Scott was already trotting away, headed for the main road. They'd avoided it while they were sneaking out, but it would be a faster way in.

"What if the rider comes back?" Stiles yelled after him. "What should I tell him? Should I lie?" 

"Faranth's egg, don't _lie_!" So quick it made the buzz in his head shimmy, Scott whipped around. Stiles was still standing by the dragon's head, which was easily the size of a small herdbeast, Next to it Stiles looked tiny and abandoned, like a toy instead of a person. "My mother says they can tell when you lie!" 

"But—"

"But nothing! Just stay here! I'll be right back!" Before he could get more arguments, Scott took off at a trot. Behind him came some muffled complaints and at least one curse that would have made Master Guardsman Stilinski soap up his son's tongue. 

Shaking his head, Scott kept moving. He picked up his pace when he reached the road the smooth paving stones making the way less treacherous. Passing by the outer cotholds he felt incredibly exposed, but it hardly mattered. They were going to be in trouble anyway. At least they were going to be in trouble for trying to help.

About halfway back to the Hold a sudden wind pressed down. A sound like a drum hide being rubbed sounded overhead. Scott stumbled, turning in time to see a shadow block out the stars. The dragon curved overhead, angling down toward the road in a sharp dive. Shouting in surprise, he turned, sprinting for the safety of a cothold. 

He might as well not have bothered. The dragon scooped him up between two wing beats, clawed fingers wrapping around his middle. Then the ground was falling away with a sudden jerk of creaking bones. Fort Hold grew smaller and smaller until suddenly it blinked out of existence, and then there was nothing but cold void.

* * *

Derek paced along the ledge of his weyr, skin pricked with the cold while Cora watched from a warm spot under Pereth's spread blue wing. The dragon had wrapped his neck around to put his nose in reach, and was watching like she might fly away on her own wings at any second. Every dragon in the Weyr had been like that ever since the mystery queen had come and gone. Even his usually easy-going and calm Niath had spent the morning in a tail-twitching half doze, never going long without waking to check on his rider. 

From his weyr, Derek could see the visiting bronzes and golds of the Weyrleaders crowded around the Weyrbowl. Karenaeth, his mother's gold, was curled up in the center of the group, tail lashing unhappily. Her stomach was just starting to show the extra weight of the eggs she was carrying; she wouldn't lay for weeks yet. 

Which, Derek couldn't help but think, was a good thing. They were going to need every dragon they could muster. Having the Weyrwoman grounded would be impossible to work around.

He had no idea what the Weyrleaders were talking about, what they'd do about the unidentified golds. Laura was able to sit in, as the most likely to take over as Weyrwoman when Talia retired. Even Peter, who'd lost his dragon years ago, was allowed in as an adviser. Mere wingleaders weren't given that sort of preference

It rankled. _Something_ was happening, and the best he could hope for was scraps of gossip. 

"Stop pacing," Cora complained, lolling her head back to look at him over Pereth's head in her lap. Even as one of the smaller colors, he was big enough that she had to work to do it. "You're making me sick, walking in circles like that. They'll tell us eventually, or it's not our business."

He turned on a heel, raising his eyebrows at her. She stared back defiantly, cheek twitching like she was trying to hide a smile. 

"You _know_ something, don't you?" he demanded, taking a step closer. "Mother told you." 

She didn't shrink back, but her eyes dropped. Her hand ran over Pereth's head, scratching tenderly at the sensitive eye ridges. "Don't be a dimglow, you know Mother doesn't let things slip."

That had the ring of truth, as much as he hated it. "Then you got it from somewhere else. Laura?" 

" _Maybe_ Father said something," Cora finally conceded, shrugging. "It's nothing helpful. You know how he gets. Why is this so important to you anyway?"

Derek opened his mouth, then shook his head and spun around to resume his pacing. "There's a queen dragon on the loose, carting around an unknown rider. Why isn't this important to _you_?" 

"Because I have more patience than a hungry hatchling?" Cora asked too brightly. "And more sense than a stunned wherry?" 

Niath stirred on his stone couch, stretching to put his head in Derek's path. _What's wrong?_ he asked, eyes slipping open enough to show a line of swirling orange-yellow. _You're upset._

 _I'm fine._ Heaving a sigh, Derek dropped down next to his dragon. _Frustrated. That's all. I want to help._

Sitting, the top of Niath's bronze head was well above his own, but when the bronze leaned his cheek against Derek's shoulder, the touch was gentle as could be. Nameless worry and upset churned just below the dragon's thoughts, sharpened by Derek's own emotions. But on top of that was a calm, quiet contemplation only slightly rippled by the unhappiness that was affecting all the dragons. 

After a long, quiet moment, Niath asked, _Then why don't you?_

He snorted. _It's not that easy. We can't just fly off to find answers. I wouldn't know where to look._

 _Why not?_ Confusion slipped through Niath's thoughts, a puzzled feeling. _Did someone already check Igen?_

Sometimes, the simplicity of draconic thought was a barrier. And sometimes it was a stroke of genius. Hurriedly, Derek scrambled to his feet, grabbing his flight jacket off its hook. Niath wasn't in his leathers, but for a short flight they'd hardly need it. They weren't weyrlings anymore, to fall that easily.

Niath picked up on his excitement, green shading to tiny the unhappy yellow of his eyes. Claws scraped stone as he rose to his feet, wings rustling. _We're going?_

_We're going._

"What?" Cora suddenly yelped, waving a hand from behind her dragon. "Pereth says— never mind, I'm coming with you. Pereth, let me up." She made a half-hearted effort to rise, but Pereth just grumbled and settled in more comfortably. All three of his eyelids closed; clearly, he had no intention of letting her go. " _Pereth_!" 

"I won't be gone long!" A lifetime of practice crawling over dragons, first his parents' and then his own, made it easy for Derek to scale Niath's shoulder, even without the help of the straps. "If you see Laura, tell her I'll pick up some of those buns she likes."

"Don't you dare go to Igen without us, Derek—"

He settled in, and Niath spread his wings. They tipped off into open air to the sound of Cora cursing behind them.

* * *

Only the bare minimum of glow baskets lined the steep stairs that led down from the riders' quarters to the Lower Caverns. Fortunately, Derek didn't need them. The stone stairs were dry and rough enough to hold his feet, and riding a dragon had a way of inuring a man to heights. More than that, he'd grown up in the Weyr, spent his boyhood pelting barefoot up and down the stairs like he had wings that would catch him if he fell. Trotting down them at a sedate pace, in good boots and hindered only by a small oilcloth sack, was nothing. 

In the back of his mind, Niath's thoughts hummed with worry. He didn't like letting Derek out of sight. Whatever good it had done them to get out of the Weyr was already worn away. The steady thud of his dragon's feet as he paced the ledge of their weyr was a constant presence, once he found his own feet moving to, three steps for every one of Niath's. 

He hit the floor of the caverns and immediately cut to the left, waving off the collection of people who immediately moved to help him. The place was, as always, a buzz of activity. People came and went from the kitchens, and there was a collection of girls picking through the latest tithing to come from the Weavers Crafthall. Haley, whose gold had laid her eggs just a month before, was leading a clutch of Candidates around the lower caverns. Trybleth's clutch was due to hatch in less than a month, which meant the Weyr had more children underfoot than usual. 

Derek took one look at the crowd and instead cut around the side, taking a long route to avoid trampling through a collection of weyrlings going over their lessons. It forced him to duck through a dark cavern that was mostly empty of everything but half-empty baskets of dying glows. He slowed his steps to breathe in the hint of peace before he's moving on. 

His goal was a series of tiny caverns at the very edge of the stores, cavelets too small to be very useful but too big to be allowed to go to waste. They were where the overflow for the infirmary went when there were more injured than beds, or when privacy was called for. Derek slipped under the cloth curtain that had been pinned over the entry of one. It was smaller than a hatchling's couch, barely big enough to hold a narrow bed, a side table and the chair his elder sister was currently occupying. 

Being a younger brother, he did what came naturally and tossed the bag at her head. "Catch!" 

Laura's hand snapped up just in time for her to grab the bag out of the air. At his pointed look, she peeked inside, then made a sound of pleasure and pulled out one of the spicy buns he'd brought. Spices made them faintly red in spots, but mostly they were golden brown and still warm enough to be soft when she bit in. 

"You're still not forgiven for going to Igen and leaving me to deal with Cora," she mumbled around a mouthful of bread. Her plain, warm blouse collected the crumbles that dropped as she broke off another piece. "One of these days, Cora's going to tie you to the star stones and let the tunnelsnakes have you. What word?"

"No word, no surprises." Derek settled in at the foot of the bed, tucking his feet in to keep what little space there was clear. Its occupant was spread on her stomach, red hair bundled up in a messy braid to keep it away from the numbweed-slathered burns running up and down her back, smeared across the sheets where she'd moved and brushed against them. "Thread's still freezing in High Reaches, and Igen isn't much better. Etyn says he's never heard of a Beacon Hold and it's on none of their maps, but he'll keep a lookout."

Dark eyebrows arched. Laura nibbled at her bun, waiting with the sort of expectant exasperation only an older sib could pull. "So you went to Igen for nothing?"

He heaved a sigh. "It was better than sitting on my hands and waiting for you lot to drop a few crumbs." Derek swallowed against the sudden pressure of his dragon's attention, shared sorrow thick between them. "I don't like doing nothing." 

Grimacing, Laura reached back into the bag. This time she pulled out two buns, tossing him the smaller of them. "That's terrible for you, because there's nothing to do. Arony is going to ask around Harper Hall, but unless we want to talk to Masterharper Deaton..." Laura's eyebrows waggled. 

Just the thought made Derek wince. Deaton could be a good ally, but he was a nasty enemy, too. Harpers only kept the secrets that suited them. "This is Weyr business." 

"Weyrleader business."

" _Laura_ —"

"No." Keeping her head down, Laura pulled at the bun, pinching off bits of the crust to nibble on. In the glow light her eyes had a peculiar coloring, light and molten, almost as gold as her dragon's hide. "Thanks for the buns, but keep your nose out of it." 

"A queen dragon doesn't just _happen_. She had to come from somewhere!"

The crust on the bun cracked. Laura's jaw tightened. "Where she came from isn't under discussion," she said sharply. "What matters is that all the dragons agree that the boy wasn't her rider—her rider is probably dead. We just need to find her and... and help."

Derek's stomach sunk. It fit what the dragons had been feeling, that second-hand mourning and worry. "If her rider is dead, why hasn't she gone _between_?" Dragons did that. Sometimes a rider like Peter could cling to a sort of half life and not go mad with grief after losing their dragon, but dragons without riders always suicided. It was as certain as Thread. Except... 

He sat up sharply. "She's clutching, isn't she? And we don't know where." 

Closing her eyes, Laura nodded. He sank back onto the mattress. "Don't tell _anyone_. It'll just upset them." 

"That's one way to put it." Derek ran his fingers through his hair, which was still a wind-tossed mess from his flight to Igen. Niath pressed against his thoughts, hopeful and still afraid. Devastated by even a brush with a riderless dragon. "I'll keep quiet, but you can't expect me not to help. Not now." 

"Do whatever you like, not like I can stop you," Laura grumbled, but she flashed him a quick, sad smile. 

They sat for a long time, while the glows slowly faded and the shadows stretched, nibbling the buns but never speaking. 

On the bed, the girl started twitching, breath coming in shallow gulps. She shook her head, mumbling into the pillow under her cheek. Her eyes cracked open, but the bits of green iris that was visible were glazed and sightless. "Beacon," she murmured, eyes flicking blindly behind her eyelids. "Beacon... can't..." 

Suddenly, her face scrunched together and her shoulders rolled as she tried to push upright. A hiss of pain slipped between her teeth, garbled syllables slurring together into nonsense before she collapsed back to the bed only to try again. She never made it more than a finger length. 

Laura made a soothing noise and rubbed her arm with one hand while the other reached for a cup on the bedside table. "Help me get her up," she ordered, swishing the cup until a scent of bitter fellis and sweet wine rose from it. "Mind her back."

It took some doing, but Derek managed to get both hands under the girl's arms and lift her without brushing against the open wounds on her back. She didn't want to drink; Laura had to force her head back to make her take the fellis. Once it was in, though, it took quick effect. Her mumbles faded away, and she went limp in Derek's arms. He lowered her back down carefully, letting Laura straighten her limbs and blankets as best she could. 

"Poor mite," Laura sighed, running her hand over the girl's braided hair. "The fellis will keep her quiet for a while, but we can't keep it up forever."

"Has that happened a lot?" 

His sister hummed and played with the end of the girl's braid. It was short, charred on the ends where fire had ruined what might have been long locks. "Whenever the fellis starts to wear off. Sometimes she thinks she's still trapped in a fall. Sometimes it's caves, but it always comes back to Thread." 

Derek eyed the girl with new interest, tapping his fingers on the edge of the bed. The Thread score on her back was brutal, dangerously deep, but the burns were strange. Most people caught out in Threadfall didn't survive long enough to be saved, and fire wasn't the usual method of salvation for obvious reasons.

If he'd had any worry that they'd been set on a false trail, that would have evaporated it. No one would inflict that sort of wound when there were much easier ways. That all meant that Beacon Hold, wherever it was, had to be an actual clue. 

"Is anyone going to investigate Beacon Hold?" Derek heard himself ask. His fingers tapped on the bedpost, drumming out a quick beat. "Or is that something that we're not discussing?"

Laura's eyebrows went up. "It's something we're not discussing." 

He hummed. Niath was still pacing, but he could feel the dragon's curiosity pricking at his own. "So if I looked into it on my own...?"

She eyed him, lips pressed together. For a flash of a heartbeat, it made her look like their mother when they'd been little and given to being caught with stolen pies. Then her expression softened, and she shrugged. "If it'll keep you busy and out of my hair, investigate whatever you want. Not like you'll find anything anyway. It probably doesn't exist. Go chase your tail."

Rolling his eyes, Derek leaned over to give her a soft shove. "You have so much faith in me."

Her grin was a little too much to be entirely honest. "I really do."


	2. Chapter 2

Scott groaned as consciousness started coming back, things registering in bits and spurts. Gritty stone under his cheek and palms. A slow drip of water. The shuffling of bare feet. The air was dense with moisture, but still hot enough that when he took a deep breath it felt like he'd burned his throat. His ribs ached where the dragon had plucked him from the road and into the air. Pressing against them, they didn't feel broken, but he suspected they were at least bruised. 

Pushing upright, tried to take a deep breath, then gave up when he started coughing halfway through. Everything was weirdly too hot and too wet at the same time, almost steaming. Already he was sweating through his tunic and trews. 

A broad, familiar hand rubbed between his shoulder blades. "Don't breathe too deep." Stiles patted him a few times until the wheezing went away. "It takes some getting used to." 

The stone room they were in was big, about half the size of the grand hall at Fort Hold, dusty with disuse and mostly dark. The Thread shutters were pulled tight, but there weren't any glow baskets to replace it, leaving only cracks in pitted metal to let in sunlight. Piles of sand filled the nooks and crannies of the room, though it looked like some effort had been made to clear it out. All around the room, pots hung from hooks in the ceiling, dripping with moisture into smaller pots set underneath them. 

And they weren't alone. About a dozen other people were there, too. All of them about the same age as Scott and Stiles, in clothes that ranged from a farmhand's trews to a pale, dark-haired girl in a white night shift. None of them had shoes. Including, he was surprised to notice, himself and Stiles. 

Rolling his shoulders, Scott pushed himself as upright as he could manage. Breath was still hard to come by, though, so he didn't force it. It had been a long time since he'd had an attack, and he didn't want to bring it on again. "Where are we?" 

"Our best guess is Igen," a broad-shouldered boy in rough, hold-style work clothes said. "It's all desert outside, and hot as an oven with some mountains to the north and east." He was leaning against a similarly-dressed blond girl, who in turn was slumped onto a tall, thin boy with a shock of curly hair. The way the three of them clung made Scott think that they knew each other, but then he added, "I'm Boyd, Tillek Hold. This is Erica from Nerat, and Isaac of High-Plateau. We were the first three." 

"A harper and a healer might be useful," the girl in her night clothes added in with a tired smile. She was curled up with her back to one of the dunes, knees pressed against her chest. "I'm Allison, Ruatha Hold. I was taken last night, like you two." 

More introductions went around—Lydia, Terry, Jones, Edgar, more than Scott couldn't manage to follow, from holds and crafts stretching across the continent. It was a bewildering mix, without any sort of rhyme or reason other than their ages. 

"I'm Stiles, this is Scott," Stiles finally added, once the rest of them had finished. "Does anyone know why we're here?" 

All he got were shrugs and shaken heads. Except for the red-haired girl—Lydia. She flattened her lips and sat up straighter, smoothing her fingers over her skirt. "There's a man who comes twice a day to feed us," she said quietly. "He walks like a dragonman, and keeps his face hidden." She shrugged. "A dragon would have had to have taken at least some of us. There's too wide a spread."

"A dragonman wouldn't kidnap people," one of the boys whose name Scott couldn't recall scoffed. "If they wanted something, all they'd have to do is ask. No one'd refuse." 

Allison grimaced and hunched forward to rest her chin on her folded arms. "My parents did, once. They don't like being beholden to the Weyr. And if a dragon didn't do it, how _did_ we get here? Ruatha isn't near a desert, and I know I couldn't have been unconscious for that long."

Stiles glanced over at Scott, arching his eyebrows in question. All Scott could do was shrug and lean his weight into Stiles' shoulder. They were all in it together, whatever _it_ was. 

"We saw a dragon before we were taken," Stiles admitted, words slow and reluctant. "I was with it when I was knocked out."

"It grabbed me while I was on the road back to the Hold," Scott said. "Right into the air."

A shocked, uncomfortable silence settled over the group. Lydia shuffled over to Allison's dune, and the three first looked at each other in dismay. Stiles wrapped his hand around Scott's.

"But what would a dragonman want with _us_?" Erica asked quietly. 

No one had an answer.

* * *

Sun. Sun and sand and a lot of useless rocks. 

Scott clutched the side of the cliff face with one hand and shaded his eyes with the other. Desperately, he stared out over the horizon, looking for any sign, any _hint_ of what they should do. There were mountains on three sides, ridges just barely visible against a sky burned green-white by the sun. A faintly darker line of shadow cut through distance that might have been a road, but by the sand piled on it no one had used it for a long time. Those were the only other feature in a vast, bleak landscape. No rivers, no other holds, no plants. Just endless, endless sand. 

"You're not going to find anything we haven't already," Lydia called from below, cupping her hands to make the sound travel. Her red hair whipped around her face, occasionally invading her mouth and making her cough. "Get back in here before you get sunstroke!" 

He grimaced, but started climbing down. The rocks were hot, making it a treacherous climb in bare feet and without gloves. By the time he got down to the ground, his palms were tender from it. 

Lydia clicked her tongue disapprovingly and shuffled him back into inside. Scott sighed as the cooler touched his skin. It wasn't much, but the dripping jars at least helped some. He dropped to the floor to press his cheek against the cool stone, groaning in relief. 

Boots shuffled near his head, and then Boyd said, "Hold still." A cold dribble of water ran down his neck, then further down his back. It felt so good the Scott rolled his head to let it run over even more skin. He couldn't see Boyd's face, but he heard the grin in his voice as he said, "You should take off your shirt."

"Yeah, Scott, take off your shirt," Erica leered from the far side of the main hall, just as the door opened and a wash of hot, dry air blew in. 

"There's nothing on the cliff top," Stiles announced, loudly enough for his voice to bounce off the ceiling. "And I mean nothing. Sand and some weirdly placed rocks that it looks like someone's been shuffling around. Shouldn't we be saving water?"

"There's a well," one of the girls offered helpfully.

"A well?" Scott craned his head, but he couldn't find the source of the voice. "How much of the hold is there?"

"A lot. We haven't explored very far though," Boyd said. He finally stopped soaking Scott's back long enough to sit by his side and hand over the cup. It was clay, nicked and worn, but still solid. The water tasted faintly of silt, but it was still cold and fresh. "It looks pretty deserted. Whoever used to be here took almost everything with them that wasn't too heavy to move."

"You think it was a plague?" Stiles dropped down on Scott's other side, taking a sip from the cup when it was offered. He was drenched in sweat, and even the short trip that it had taken to climb the side of the hold to the cliff tip had left his nose and cheeks bright red. "Maybe he wants to infect us with it and spread it around again."

"It doesn't look like a plague-hold. No graves, no bonfire sites. No bones." Muscles seemed to creak as Boyd shrugged. "Anyroad, that would have been a long time ago. I wouldn't worry." 

"Yeah, probably nothing to worry about." Stiles bit his lip, meeting Scott's eyes. Years and years of friendship connected in the single rise of an eyebrow. He nodded, and Stiles tossed back the rest of the water before they stood in unison. Together, they headed toward the back of the hall, where an irregular rectangle of stone formed what had to be the door that led to the rest of the hold. 

Beyond the doorway the faint light from ajar shutters vanished utterly, leaving them in near darkness. Unconsciously, Scott wrapped his fingers in Stiles' shirt so he wouldn't lose him. The other hand stretched out, trailing over uneven stone.

"Where are you going?" Lydia demanded, peeking in behind them. She was a silhouette in the doorway, clutching her skirts around her legs and bouncing in place. 

"Exploring!" they called back, only half a syllable off from each other. 

"If we're going to be trapped here, we may as well find out where _here_ is," Stiles finished for them. His hand stayed planted in between Scott's shoulders, pushing him along, as if he needed it. Or as if he were preparing to shove Scott out of the way in the event of a Lydia Attack. By the way her face was starting to turn sharper than a tunnelsnake's claws, that was a definite possibility.

Bare feet scrabbled on stone. "Wait up, I'll come with you!" Allison called. A second later, she breezed right past Lydia, barreled between them and ran into the shadows.

" _Allison_!" 

A pale blur of nightgown and skin appeared in front of them. Allison grinned, rocking on her heels. "They have a point, Lydia. What else are we supposed to do, sit on our tails and wait? Maybe we'll find something useful in here."

"Or maybe you'll get lost and no one will ever find your bones!" Lydia made a high-pitched noise of frustration that ended in an unladylike snort. "Ugh, fine, we'll all die together then." She stomped forward until she'd gotten close enough to grab Scott's elbow and clutch it to her chest. "Let's get this over with." 

The four of them inched along the tunnel. It was far too narrow for them to walk in a line. Allison skimmed forward the most, stretching out her arms to feel for doorways. Most of what they found was wedged tightly shut. The doors that did open were mostly filled with sand, unbarred shutters having left them open for the wind to fill up. A few places led to rough stairs that had been carved out of the stone. No one even suggested trying to climb stairs without a glow basket, not even Stiles. One place, a large room without any windows, was full of crates and piles of dried up old wineskins. Another was lined with bricks and was chilly enough that it felt like stepping into another world rather than a room in a desert hold. 

Their big find, however, was a tiny nook of a place set so far back in the hold that the corridor had narrowed until they had to walk single-file. The door swung open with only a little bit of extra push. Light shined in through cracks in the Thread shutters where they'd been knocked off their hinges, cutting through the gloom in thin golden beams. 

What it lit up had Stiles making noises like a wherry in mating season. 

" _Records_!" He let go of Lydia's hand and dived forward, almost knocking Scott into the wall in his haste. Piles and piles of records filled the room, bound together into parcels with twine. His hands hovered over the top of one, wavering like he couldn't decide whether to risk opening it or not. Finally he just gave in and started opening it up with all the glee of a child on their naming day. "They must have left every piece of hide behind."

"Did they leave behind anything _useful_ , maybe?" Lydia's actions belied her scorching tone. She drifted in Stiles' wake, running her fingertips over stacks of hides. She rubbed at it restlessly without opening the twine. "Like maybe a map to the nearest hold?" 

"If they were a trading hold, there might be." Scott found a stack of hides to look at. They were old and stiff, dry enough to crumble at the edges, but the ink was still sharp enough to read if he angled it to catch the light just so. "Like this, look. We're in Beacon Hold. That's something, right?"

"Yes, it means the place we've never heard of has a name," Lydia shot at him like an arrow. Her hair caught one of the beams of sunlight, bloody red in the dark. "Well done, Scott. Maybe next you'll find out it's in a desert." 

"Be nice," Allison murmured, peering over Scott's shoulder. Her dark hair tumbled in waves around her face, tickling at his neck. He blushed, holding the record up higher for her. "There's bound to be something here, we just have to know how to look." 

Stiles grunted, hefting up a triple-stacked pile, wobbling before he found his balance. His eyebrows peeked above the top one, barely visible. He shoved the stack at Scott, making him grunt and almost topple into Allison before he caught his footing. "We're taking these. At least it's something to do." 

The face Lydia made could have etched metal, but she picked up her own stack of records and clutched it to her chest like a baby. "Fine," she sniffed, not sounding nearly as put out as she probably was striving for. "If you _insist_."

* * *

A sevenday since the event, and no one was any closer to answers. 

Derek pulled his helmet off and staggered into his dimly lit weyr, where a helpful someone had left a covered dish of food. He dropped to the chair with a heavy sigh and stared at the plate, wondering if it was worth the effort of eating. He didn't even bother opening the glow basket fully. It was too late, and he was too tired to deal with light. 

Behind him, Niath settled onto his couch with a long groan. Without looking, Derek knew that his dragon would be stretched out as close as he could get to the central quarters. At least, as close as he could get until Derek took his pillow to the dragon's couch and sacrificed his back for Niath's comfort. Most riders were doing it, these days. Hopefully it wouldn't become a permanent change, or he'd have to take the step of simply moving his bed entirely, and that would be difficult to tolerate come winter. It was bad enough with the spring chill. Snow would be the death of him, even with a dragon for warmth.

His wing had spent the last several days flying search over Southern Boll, the consensus being that it would be an attractive place for a frightened dragon to hide. It was, however, mostly a terrible place for laying eggs, being mostly thick jungle. The few beaches that might have suited were popular with the locals—nothing isolated enough to hide a clutch. It was a waste of everyone's time, but the Weyrleaders were acting like they didn't know better, and no one had the authority to question them. 

Worst of all, the elusive Beacon Hold remained exactly that. There just wasn't time to find it. Every wing had its orders, and Igen—if it even was in Igen—was a sandpit of few land marks. Without a map, he could scour the desert for months and end up doing little more than circling the same handful of locations. None of the maps he'd been able to find had been useful at all. Derek was starting to think that the only place that would have one might be Harper Hall, which he'd hoped not to involve. 

Those hopes might have to be given up, though, and soon. The dragons' fears were a constant background, a water clock dripping away. They were losing time. 

He heard the door to his Weyr open and close quietly, bare feet padding in. Cora shuffled into view, trailing a quilt around her shoulders and a wineskin from her fingertips. She was still in flying gear, and her hair had that unique shape that came from sweating in a helmet for hours on end. Clutching her blanket, she sat in the only other chair, flicking the glow basket open with her fingertips and flooding the weyr with light. "You look exhausted. Present."

Derek snorted and reached for the skin. He didn't bother seeking a goblet, just took a long pull without it. It was too sharp, an inferior vintage, but he'd sleep better for it, which was what counted. "So do you." Another mouthful, and then he offered it over. 

Cora's nose wrinkled, but she took a drink. "It's not for much longer. They'll forget." 

Stone crunched on the ledge. He spared just enough energy to look and see, exactly as expected, Pereth's blue hide curling up against Niath's bronze. "Will they? It's been long enough. They usually don't remember this long." Even in their sleep, the dragons were tense. Unhappy anticipation thrummed under Niath's thoughts, a constant question with no answer to be found. 

She shrugged and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. The wine sat between her hands, ready to be grabbed again at need. "Dragons always forget." 

"But they're not." Wood scraped the stone floor as he turned his chair to watch the two sleeping dragons. He hung his elbow over the back of the chair, using it to keep himself from falling forward. Exhaustion had sunk its claws into him so deep that he could almost feel the world threatening to drift away. "It hasn't dimmed at all."

"They _will_." The way Cora said it, it was as if she thought she could make it so out of sheer force of will. "Give them time. All this searching is just reminding them."

"You don't think—"

"I don't. And neither should you." She shoved the wine across the table and stood. "Enjoy uour wine. Get some sleep. I'm going to go..." Cora's eyes went wide in shock a breath before her knees went out and she dropped back to the chair. Pereth and Niath's heads came up, eyes flaring red. 

He felt it just a moment later, a sudden lacking that sunk down into his gut and then pulled it to his knees. Rage followed quick on its heels, white hot, blood roaring in his ears. 

No. It wasn't him. Every dragon in the Weyr was roaring. The sound sank through stone, made his own bones vibrate in time to it. 

_The eggs!_

He didn't realize he was on the move until he'd stepped into Niath's foreclaw and the ground was dropping out from under them. Cora and Pereth were with them, flying close enough that their wings nearly clipped. Other dragons joined them, blues and greens and brown swarming together. They curved around the bowl to the hatching sands, where it seemed like every person in Pern was collecting. Niath pulled in his wings, dropping sharply down only to pull up at the last possible second to settle on the sands. 

Derek took a single look, then turned his head to vomit.

The sands were a mess of shards and slimy, half-formed hatchling bodies. Someone had taken an ax to the shells; it had been discarded to the side, blade shining grotesquely with the evidence. Weyrfolk pressed in a wide circle around the sands. Some people shouted wept, and others had already been ill. Somewhere in the crowd, a child wailed in distress. 

Trybleth hovered over the shattered clutch, golden wings spread and head snaking back and forth to ward off anyone who would try to come close. Claws raked the sand, teeth bared as she stood over the battered little corpses. Her rider was trying desperately to calm her down, but she ignored him, too far gone in rage and grief for even a rider's bond to bring her back to herself. 

"What happened?" Wiping his mouth free of bile, Derek looked around, but everyone else looked just as confused as he was. No one seemed to be taking charge. He wasn't sure how anyone _could_ take charge. 

Niath keened softly, curling his neck around Derek's ribs and tucking in him close. There was a feeling of rage held in check, like Niath was barely controlling himself. Distrust. Hatred. Grief. _She went to the feeding grounds_ , he said, voice sharp with tension.

The burn of emotions nearly made Derek ill again. He pushed it back, taking a deep breath. Someone had attacked a clutch of eggs. That had never happened before. It was inconceivable, impossible, but the evidence of it lay squarely before them.

Another set of wings fluttered, deeper gold in the glow-lit cavern. Karenaeth landed just out of Trybleth's reach, her head low and wings staying spread. Talia slipped off her shoulder, staying close to her dragon's side. She stood straight and tall, a commanding presence despite the deep circles that lined her eyes. Trybleth roared and snapped, and Karenaeth screamed back, fanning her wings wider until Trybleth's head came down and she backed away.

Talia was quick walking through the scene. She didn't touch the dead hatchlings, took a path wide around them where possible to drift toward the axe. Trybleth hissed when she got too close, forcing her turn her path away and circle back. Derek held his breath when she stepped out of sight behind the dragon's bulk. 

When she reappeared, her face was no less grim, but her shoulders had straightened. "The queen egg remains! The queen, and half the clutch!" she called, stepping back over to Karenaeth. The dragon immediately started fussing, sniffing her hair and trying to shuffle her in closer, even though Talia wasn't done speaking. "Haley, see if you can get her to move what's left to the other side of the grounds," she ordered,. "I'll need volunteers to help... clean up, and others to hunt for Trybleth until the eggs hatch. She's not going to want to leave. Everyone else, out!"

A ragged, halfhearted cheer went up from the throats of folk desperate for any sort of good news, even if it was of half a survival rather than none. The crowd slowly dispersed in little knots and tangles, some lingering to watch as Haley worked on soothing his dragon enough to follow the Weyrwoman's orders.

Cora shot her brother a sharp look as they shuffled their dragons out of the way. "You think this is what the dragons have been waiting for?" 

"Maybe." Derek watched as the weyrfolk swirled around them, seemingly the entire population of the Lower Caverns making their way out of the grounds, cutting paths through the sand. Weyrleader Dracen touched down on his bronze to help direct traffic while Talia and Karenaeth helped the shattered pair. One by one, riders and dragons dispersed as well, back to their weyrs and, Derek assumed, wine cups. He felt a need for a drink or two himself, and not just due to exhaustion. "What do you two think?"

Niath arched his neck, angling it so that Derek was blocked in against his check on three sides. _Pereth thinks it is. The strange queen thought much of eggs while she was here. I agree._

Which could have had to do with her clutch. Any queen laying an egg with this sort of threat would be nervous. But... _How could she have known?_

His dragon's eyes swirled, fading from their previous bright red down to orange. _I don't know._

Taking a sharp breath between his teeth, Derek sagging back against Niath's warm side. "We're going to be busy tomorrow again," he sighed, tipping his head back. 

Across the way, Cora's eyebrows arched. "What? You think you're going to find the egg-breaker on your own?" 

"I don't think we have much choice."

* * *

More people arrived at the abandoned old hold in twos and threes. Always in the dead of night, always unconscious. Scott saw the man bring them in a few times, but it was never more than a glimpse before he was gone again. Their meals came in the same way, bags of bread and dried meat, occasionally some fruit that was deposited with haste before their captor vanished back out the door. 

The hides they'd found didn't have any useful maps, just sketches of nearby trading holds without any context to them. Instead there were sheets of music, copies of histories, harpers' lessons, even some poetry. Stiles was the one who dove in most eagerly, because harpers had a calling for dry, dusty reading, but Scott was right there with him when it didn't get too boring. Lydia claimed custody of the teaching charts and some numbers hides, while the histories got handed out to anyone who could read aloud. 

When listening to another rendition of Moreta's Ride became too much, they turned to other methods to keep busy. Kira, a girl who'd showed up a few days after Scott, showed them all how to weave hair into elaborate crowns. Lydia taught mathematics and how to find their way with the stars, using a bit of charred wood and a wall as a slate. Once she even dragged them outside to see the dawn sisters as they rose, but the near mutiny that caused made sure she never did it again. Boyd had them all enraptured by stories of his cousins back home, who had apparently done every trick in the ballads, and a few that would make a harper blush. Stiles proved that by hiding his face in Scott's shoulder every time Boyd started to talk. 

It was in the middle of one round of stories when the door slammed open, a full sevenday after Scott and Stiles' arrival. Unlike all the other times, though, it was full daylight, and the man left the door open as he stepped in. His head and face were covered by an Igen-style headdress, designed to keep out the sun and sand with its layers and layers of fine cloth that left only his eyes visible. 

"Time to earn your keep, children. Outside." At first, they didn't move. With a sharp, exasperated sound, he pulled a sword from his hip, leveling it at the girl nearest him. "Let's try that again. _Outside_."

Slowly, they shuffled to their feet. Scott made sure to stay close to Stiles, keeping a handful of his tunic so they didn't get separated. Surprisingly, Allison grabbed his other arm, putting herself between the two of them and the sword as they edged around the man and through the door. 

The sun beat down, dull red in a clear sky, still coming up on the eastern horizon. Though it wasn't even midday, the sands were hot enough that they scalded Scott's bare feet, making him skip awkwardly to keep from burning himself. Stiles cursed, hopping from foot to foot, and Allison rose up on her toes. Lydia, whose skin was paler than even Stiles', folded her arms overhead as if she could hide until one of the more tanned boys shrugged off his tunic and offered it to her as a shade. 

It hadn't been as obvious inside the hold, but outside, looking at everyone gathered in a tight knot, numbers started clicking together. Scott looked over them, counting heads silently. Twenty of them, against a single man.

As if he could hear what Scott was thinking, the man turned and cocked his head. His eyes were piercing blue, one of them twisted and scarred by a line of Threadscore that looked like it had just barely missed blinding him. "You're welcome to try. Just as you're welcome to face the desert to go home." He shrugged, as if he didn't particularly care whether he lived or died. "I don't think any of you are that dim, though. You wouldn't be here if you were." 

"What do you want?" Stiles asked, raising his voice so it carried across the entire group. "You keep us here, you feed us, but you haven't done anything!" 

"Yet." The man turned his head the finger width it took to look at Stiles directly. The way he moved his head made Scott think that his bad eye hadn't escaped damage completely; he kept it turned slightly away, the folds of his headscarf shaded it better than the other. "Come and see." Turning, he left his back wide open as he strode away, climbing one of the dunes to the west. 

Before temptation had a chance to sink in its claws, Allison tightened her grip on Scott's arm. "Not yet," she murmured. "We need to at least find out where we are, first. Then we can plan an escape."

"And you have experience in escape?" Lydia came up, holding the borrowed tunic over her head. Her nose was already starting to turn pink. "What _did_ you say you did in Ruatha again?" 

Allison flashed her a quick smile. "A little of this and that. Come on, before we miss something important." 

Sticking close to each other, they slogged up the side of the dune, fighting the loose sand every step, using each other for balance. Scott stumbled once, and was kept from a graceless tumble by Erica coming up behind and giving him a shove. They reached the top in a tight knot and froze, staring down the other side of the dune.

A queen dragon was curled around a mounded pile of sand, her eyes vivid orange and her tail thrashing. Graying hide hung loose on an emaciated frame, but she arched her head up to the sky and let out a roar fit for any fighter. The mound of sand was lumpy, oddly shaped. Here and there, bits of color peeked through. 

Eggs. 

"Shards," Scott breathed out. Fear started to knot up in his stomach, chilling him where the sun couldn't reach. Something was coming. He could feel it. With instinct learned in the cradle, Scott turned east. The Red Star was still up, mostly visible all day, and smudged on the horizon was a gray-silver smear.

"Thread!" Kira had seen it, too. She grabbed the shoulders of the people around her, started shoving them the way they'd come from. "Everyone, back in the hold, we have to—" 

The man slapped his hand over her mouth and picked her up by the waist, kicking and twisting. With a casual toss, he sent her spinning down the far side of the dune. She screamed and flailed as she tumbled, eventually catching herself halfway to the bottom. "Anyone who goes back in the hold will be tied out for Thread to eat. You lot are going to be ground crew for the clutch." He jumped over the edge of the dune, letting his own weight pull him down. "Hurry up, children! Flame throwers this way!" 

They ran. Even Lydia hurried, tossing aside her protective shade in a rush to get to the flame throwers. They were hidden behind the dragon, all of them still shiny new. The smear of Thread grew closer on the horizon, from a distant threat into a cloud that darkened the sun. Those who had worked ground crew before helped those who hadn't settle the packs and learn how to hold the nozzle so they wouldn't singe themselves. 

Scott had worked in the crews before. His mother insisted on it, and it had felt good to be useful instead of hidden away in the Hall. But that had been with dragons in the sky to take care of most of it. Dragons wouldn't bother flying over the sands. There was nothing for Thread to eat.

Nothing except for them and a clutch of dragon eggs.

"Stay close to the eggs!" Scott yelled, following his own order and wading right up to the edge of the pile. The queen hissed and flared out her wings, eyes shading to dull red. 

"They're helping." The man pressed up against her side, rubbing her shoulder before climbing up into the rider's seat. His flamethrower was bigger than theirs, with a different nozzle that sat more smoothly in his hand. "Let them." 

Lydia's head swiveled. "Helping? Is that what you call—"

" _Thread_!" someone screamed, voice cracking. 

Then there was nothing but survival. The queen and her rider sprang into the air to circle over the clutch, flamethrower a constant burn. Thread fell in clumps and patches, silvery white tatters that was seared into ash as quickly as it could be spotted. Stiles took Scott's other side, angled so his flamethrower would cover Scott almost as much as the eggs. Scott found his back pressed to Boyd's, while Allison and a few others waded into the middle of the eggs. 

The sizzle and hiss of Thread hitting the sand surrounded them. A voice cried out in pain behind them, but it was quickly cut off by a wet gurgle. Scott couldn't bring himself to look. A few times, the queen roared and flickered out of sight, always coming back precisely where she had been. In the few seconds without her covering the overhead, the Threadfall was thicker. Scott fought to reach it all before it landed, coming so close that the ash was still warm where it landed on his cheeks. 

It happened in seconds. The queen overhead flickered out, and the wave of Thread came down. Instinctively they pressed closer together, making the wall of flame that much more solid. Bodies jostled and shoved. Someone tripped. 

Lydia screamed. 

She hit her knees, flamethrower falling from her hands. Thread writhed on her back, already pumping as it fed. Scott froze, finger locked around the trigger of his flame thrower. 

Allison leaped over the eggs in a whirl of dark curls. Fire sputtered, arching over and scalding Lydia's back , searing the Thread to ash and Lydia's skin with it. Before the flames could spread further, Allison shoved Lydia to the ground and rolled her over until the sand had doused the fire. 

Then she planted herself over Lydia's fallen form like a queen over her clutch, aggressively flaming anything that came her way. Scott waded into the middle of the clutch to take Allison's place protecting the middle eggs. 

The dragon came back, and the fight went on. Scott tried to keep an eye on Allison and Lydia, but he found himself pushed around until they were hidden behind people and eggs. Stiles kept close to his side, burning Thread with an intensity he usually saved for records. 

Threadfall only lasted about a quarter of a candlemark. It seemed like an eternity. By the time it was done, two of them were dead. Only belt buckles and bits of jewelry were left, dropped to the sand where they'd fallen. Scott felt a pang of guilt that he couldn't remember them, didn't recognize their faces enough to know who was missing by anything but a head count. 

The living were covered in ash and burns, though none as bad as Lydia's. Some of her hair had been seared off, leaving blackened, frazzled ends, and her dress was burned off her shoulders. 

"Boyd, Stiles, get her back in the hold!" Scott ordered, peeling off the straps that held his flame thrower in place. The two boys hurried to comply, dropping their flamethrowers in the sand behind them. Allison stayed close, supporting Lydia middle so she didn't sag too much. "I'll need clean water and some clothes. Do we have any numbweed?" Heads shook—they only had what had been on them when they'd been taken, and what they'd been given. It wasn't much. 

The dragon landed over her clutch, lurching slightly before she settled in. The rider, who Scott was mostly certain wasn't _her_ rider, peered down. He didn't even bother to unclip himself from the harness. 

Scott squared his shoulders and marched over to her, craning his head to look up. "We need medical supplies. Numbweed, bandages, clean cloths. Fellis, if you can get it." 

"Is that so?" With the man's face covered it was impossible to tell, but Scott thought he might be smirking. 

"If you don't want her to die out here, yes!" He set his jaw, trying to mimic the expression his mother got when someone tried to play rank. A sharp, grinding thing dragged through his head, a mortar and pestle crunching his thoughts. Just around the edge of them, something echoed, voices too far away to hear but still recognizable as voices. Scott did his best to ignore it—everyone knew that too much sun and sand could get to person. "Or what about your dragon? Does she want a girl to die out here?"

A soft, worried sound rumbled in the dragon's chest. She craned her neck to look around at the rider. 

The man snorted. "I'll see what I can do." Scott didn't get a chance to answer before the queen spread her wings. Sand stung his eyes as she took off, spiraling up into the air. She didn't vanish _between_ , though. Simply circled, watching her clutch from above. 

Shaking his head, Scott turned and started the trek back up the dune to the hold. They had water, at least. Maybe he could do something to help before Lydia woke.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Derek did as soon as Niath was settled after the egg massacre was go down to the healing caverns to see the girl. She was still in a fellis-induced stupor, so he planted himself by the wall to wait for the latest dose to wear off. 

An hour in his elder sister joined him, expression grim. She took the bedside chair in silence, brought out a piece of leatherwork, and proceeded to ruin it. Flowers decorated the edges, but she'd taken out her frustration by stabbing the piece through with her tools.

It was early morning by the time the girl started to rouse, whimpering from the pain in her back. Laura's head snapped up, blade skittering across to stab through a flower. She looked down at it with a snarl, and another stab for good measure. 

Derek smiled tiredly. "I hope that wasn't commissioned." 

Laura gave him a baleful look, flashing her teeth in what was definitely not a smile. "Shut up, you—"

Abruptly the whimpers turned into a gasp as the girl shoved up on her elbows. "Allison?" Her head swiveled, eyes flicking around the room. "Where's— _Allison_! What—" She hissed, one hand slipping around to touch her shoulder. 

Quick as a tunnelsnake, Laura grabbed the girl's biceps, holding her pinned to the bed. The leather cuff she'd been tooling tumbled to the floor in a mess of thongs and thread. "Easy," she soothed, rubbing her thumbs along the girl's arms. "You're safe here. Try to relax." 

Still pale with pain and panic, the girl nodded and slowly lowered herself back down. Green eyes darted around the room in sharp jerks, from Derek to the curtain, to Laura's face, down to their shoulder knots. That relaxed her a little. Her raw shoulders still heaved with uncertain, shaky breaths, but she stopped shaking. "I'm in a Weyr." 

"Fort," Derek acknowledged with a nod. 

Bit by bit, her breathing leveled. She closed her eyes, but before Derek could worry that she'd slipped asleep again, she said, "What happened? Where are the others?" 

"We were hoping you could tell us." Laura lifted her weight off the girls' arms and settled back into her chair without bothering to pick up her busy work. "Starting with your name."

"Lydia of Martin Crafthold, from just outside Boll." Licking her lips, she pushed up again, shoving Laura's hands off when she tried to stop her. "I need to sit up. My head's thick. I just..." Lydia's weight wobbled, but she managed to get upright, with her legs over the edge of the cot and the plain gray blanket clutched to her chest to hide her bare bosom. "I don't remember much after the Thread fell. Just cold."

"Tell us anything you know." Derek slid down the wall to look her in the eye. They were still glazed, a bit fuzzy from fellis she hadn't shaken off yet. "It's important." 

She eyed him warily, but nodded. "I... I was kidnapped maybe... a sevenday before I was..." One of her hands reached back as if to touch her burns, but she stopped herself at the last moment. "We think it was called Beacon Hold. There were about thirty of us, taken in the middle of the night by..." Full lips flattened together, and Derek could see her weighing her words, deciding what it was safe to tell. 

"We need to know _everything_ ," Laura reminded her, touching her knee gently. "Any small detail could be vital." 

"I wonder how much you already know," Lydia shot back without much bite in her tone. Just exhaustion. "The man who took care of us was a dragonman. I don't know if he acted alone, but he was the only one I saw. He mostly just brought food and new people and ignored us. Until..." She bit her lip. "There was Thread. The dragonman brought us out into the desert, and there were... eggs? Dragon eggs, outside the Weyr, and a queen. I think they were almost ready to hatch." 

Breath hissed in between Laura's teeth, and Derek had a hard fight to keep his expression firm. They were already too late. The thought burned. If they'd been close to hatching so long ago, then there was no hope. None. 

If Lydia noticed their reactions, she didn't say anything. Her eyes stayed low, as if she were reading off a hide. "The dragonman had flamethrowers, and he wanted us to protect the nest from Thread. I don't know what happened after the Thread hit me and Allison burned it off. I passed out, and here I am. If you want any more answers, you'll have to talk to the dragonman."

"Tell us more about where you were being kept," Laura prompted gently, glancing over at Derek pointedly. "No one's heard of Beacon Hold. It's not on our maps." 

Honest confusion pinched Lydia's expression. She shifted forward on the cot, wincing when the moment pulled at her burns. "It was a desert. Hot, dry, nothing but sand and the hold..." One of her hands rose, sketching a shape through the air as she described the shape of the cliff, the walls of a courtyard outside that were mostly buried in sand, mountains on the horizon.

"I swear, the records said Beacon. And..." Her mouth pulled to the side in an unhappy grimace. The fellis haze was fading fast. Derek had a feeling that if they'd waited until she'd been completely free of it, they wouldn't have gotten any answers at all. "You have to find them. Before the eggs hatch. There's no food there, nothing but what the dragonman brings. The dragons, they'll..."

Derek and Laura traded glances. He thought they'd been circumspect enough, but Lydia sat up sharply, shorn hair falling forward around her cheeks. 

"They've already hatched, haven't they?" she demanded, voice climbing higher, unsteady in growing panic. "They've— it's too late, isn't it?"

"It's been a sevenday since you came here," Derek said, as gently as he could, reaching out to touch her knee. "We don't know that they've hatched for certain, but..."

"But they probably have." The wobble in her tone turned into an outright crack. She crumbled forward, hiding her face in her hands. 

"Even if the eggs hatched, they're probably not dead yet," Laura tried to sooth her, rubbing at her arm. "Hatchlings impress first, and they won't— they don't eat people. It's only when they're first hatched that they're dangerous, and that's mostly clumsiness."

"So maybe only _some_ of my friends are dead?" Lydia yanked away from Laura. One hand snaked out to grab her pillow, swinging it at Derek. He lunged backwards, falling on his ass to dodge, but it curved around and smacked Laura right in the side of the head. "Or they aren't dead _yet_? And that's supposed to reassure me? Get out! _Out_!"

Derek scrambled to his feet, grabbing Laura's leatherwork off the floor as he bolted past a healer and through the curtain, his sister hot on his heels. Cooks and drudges shouted as they dodged around them, a whole crowd of people rushing to see what the noise was about. They didn't stop running until they were through the Caverns and in the open air of the weyrbowl. Lydia's heart-broken screams were still audible, though dimmed by the distance. 

"That could have gone better," Laura panted, bracing herself on her knees. 

"Definitely sounded like Igen, though," Derek pointed out. He dropped to the ground and fell backwards onto the cool grass, sharp blue-green blades poking the back of his neck. The sky was that blue-purple shade that only happened before the sun came up, with a few lingering stars speckled across it. The dawn sisters sat on the southern horizon, as certain as the Red Star to the northeast. "Nothing else has desert like that."

A second of silence, and then Laura sat beside him, knee deliberately poking into his ribs. "You're thinking about going looking, aren't you?" 

"Are we still not discussing it? If there's a clutch of hatchlings out there, we don't have time for games and secrets." 

He didn't need to look to know Laura was glaring at him. "We have time."

Derek arched his neck to look up at her, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. In the distance, Lydia's screams faded. Presumably, someone had plied her with fellis. "Did you hit your head on something?" 

"If I did, what's your excuse?" Curling forward, Laura wrapped her arms around her knees. Rising sunlight cut through her hair, casting dramatic shadows over her cheeks. It made her look older than her twenty-something turns, and exhausted on top of that. "Go to Harper Hall, see if they have Beacon on a map. You won't find _them_ , but it'll be a starting point. I'll talk to mother and father."

A frown tugged at his mouth. "You're not making any sense. What aren't you telling me?"

"Something I'm not telling you." She smiled, quick and bright. It might have been believable if it ever touched her eyes. "Go to Harper Hall, Derek. Trust your big sister."

"Do I have a choice?"

"No." 

He scowled. "I hate it when you do that." 

Finally, Laura's smile turned honest. "I know."

* * *

They made Lydia as comfortable as they could in one of the back rooms of the hold, stretched out on her front and pillowed with someone's over tunic. Allison insisted on helping Scott peel off what was left of Lydia's blouse, holding her still as he ripped the fire-fragile fabric. It was down to tatters, anyway, some of it burned straight onto the skin. The wound itself was vicious, red skin peeling back, charred black in places, but there was thankfully little blood. Where the Threads struck was a deep divot spanning across her ribs and side, a chunk of flesh visibly absent. 

Scott dipped the cleanest cloth they had in a bucket of water Stiles had brought, squeezing it out across Lydia's back to wash away anything he could. There was a lot of sand and ashes in the wound, making it impossible to fully see the extent of the damage. The mess clung to tattered flesh, not wanting to wash away easily. 

When he'd gotten as much as he could, he finally damped the cloth again and started dabbing it over Lydia's back. She didn't wake through any of it. He wasn't enough of a healer to be certain, but he thought that was likely a bad sign. The rest of their group watched from the walls, huddled together in shock. 

"Is she going to be okay?" Allison shifted closer to Lydia's head, brushing her hair away from her shoulders. She watched Lydia like the Thread was still there, waiting to finish swallowing her up.

"We need supplies." Scott dabbed the cloth over one of the uglier wounds. "A bed. Better clothes. A real healer. I'm just an apprentice."

"You're all we've got." Stiles dropped down by Scott's side, crossing his legs so his knees stretched out to form a link between Scott and Allison. Long fingers tangled together anxiously, new burns across the knuckle. "I don't think the dragonman is going to help. We've got plenty of girls, even if we lose a few."

Erica tried to push her way through the knot of people, her blonde hair a frizzy tangle of charred ends. "What's that supposed to mean, harper boy?" 

Boyd grabbed her arm, dragging her back before she could launch herself at Stiles. "Erica—"

" _No_ , Boyd." She stopped advancing, but yanked her arm out of Boyd's hands. "He knows something, and I want to know what it is."

"Isn't it obvious?" Stiles rolled his head around to glare at her. "There's a clutch of dragon eggs and three dozen of us, fifteen to sixteen turns old at most. We've been _Searched_."

The room went silent. Everyone knew someone who had been Searched, had heard rumors of what happened to the unlucky ones. Weyrs didn't let anyone from outside watch, but there were still stories of boys and girls who'd died on the hatching sands, mauled by the hatchlings. Even the lucky ones would never be the same again, would never go home again—the only place for a dragon was in a Weyr. 

"Are you sure?" Allison asked Stiles, voice soft, but commanding. "This isn't how the Weyrs work." 

Stiles tensed, eyes sliding away like he did when he didn't want to talk about something. "I know that." 

"I don't think he's working for the Weyrs," Scott put in. He kept his eyes down, focusing on cleaning the wounds in front of him. "The queen looks ill. A Weyr would never let her get in that condition."

"So, what? They're Weyrless?" Isaac's voice was thick with skepticism. "A queen?"

Scott's head whipped around. "I didn't say that!" he snapped. "I don't know where they came from or why they're doing this."

For a long minute, no one said anything. Lydia was starting to move a little, eyelids fluttering, her jaw starting to twitch. He was torn between wishing she'd wake up so he could be sure she ever would, and wishing she'd stay unconscious. Without numbweed or fellis, the burn was going to be incredibly painful. No one should have to be awake through that. 

Allison ran her fingers over Lydia's forehead, smoothing away the wrinkles caused by pain. "If they're not from a Weyr, then the Weyr will be looking for us. Maybe..." She bit her lip, blinking away a suspicious shine. "How long do we have?" 

Biting his lip, Scott did some quick calculations before shaking his head. "Not long enough. We need to get her to a healer." 

Stiles picked up Lydia's hand, cradling it between his own. "I think—we might be able to get some help. Maybe."

A protesting noise sounded from the watchers. "But you said—"

"Not from him," Stiles interrupted. "From the dragon."

* * *

Scott, Allison and Stiles stayed by Lydia's side, keeping her back clean and away from the worst of the sand. They didn't have anything to cover it, and Scott wasn't even sure if it _should_ be bandaged. Bad burns were later-level injuries, usually left to masters and journeymen. Regardless, she never regained consciousness, a mixed blessing Scott felt guilty to be grateful for. 

They waited until the sun was firmly set and the first moon had risen, silvery light shining through the eastern shutters. Then Scott and Stiles carefully picked Lydia up by the shoulders and ankles, Allison supporting her at the waist again as they carried her outside. No one volunteered to help. Scott wouldn't have accepted it, even if they had. The fewer people at risk, the better.

Outside, the night air had gone from blazing to almost frigid. Bumps prickled up Scott's arms where his tunic didn't cover them. In sharp contrast, the sand was still hot enough to burn under the loose top layer. Lydia groaned when Stiles stumbled, almost hitting his knees in the sand, but Allison and Scott kept her level enough until he was back on his feet. 

On the other side of the dune the dragon was curled around her eggs, wings spread out to cover them from above. The moonlight leeched what little color was left in her hide, turning her into something from a harper's tale. Her wings spread out, covering most of the mound of eggs, but she'd pulled one in between her forelimbs where her head could curl around it protectively. The egg was big, bigger than the others that Scott could see poking out under the sand. The flamethrowers they'd used earlier had been piled near it, their metal canisters gleaming in the moons light.

"Is that a queen egg?" Allison whispered, craning her head. She missed her footing and skidded, sinking to the ankle in a mound of sand. Hissing, she hopped, twisting around until she was back on her feet. 

"Probably," Stiles answered, not even bothering to look over his shoulder as he balanced against Allison's jerking. "Let's just get this over with." 

The queen watched them as they approached, eyes dull and tired. She didn't try to strike, and there was no sign of the dragonman, so they kept on until they were right by her head.

Scott rocked his head back, looking up at the faceted, glowing eye. It was still mostly yellow, where there was any color at all. There was something about dragon eye colors that his mother had told him once, but he couldn't quite remember. Clearing his throat, he said, "We need your help."

Sand hissed as the queen rolled her head, one of her eyelids sliding halfway open. Color swirled, and the faucets shifted to focus on them. A sharp pain stabbed through Scott's head, right behind his eyes. He cried out, stumbling forward, barely managing to keep his hold on Lydia. Someone said it name, high-pitched and worried. Scott shook his head and clenched his eyes closed, fighting to stay upright. 

The pain pulled together in a tight ball. Just when he thought he might pass out, the ball popped, echoing the word, _For her?_

It was a dull, tired voice, distinctly feminine and so sad that hearing it brought tears to his eyes. But it was soft, as if someone were speaking from a long distance in an echoing hall. He straightened, wondering at the way it fit between his ears without actually touching them. "She's hurt," he answered, thinking the words as hard as he could in case it helped. "She might die. We just want you to take her somewhere she'll be able to get help." 

Hot breath washed over him as the gold dragon arched her neck so her eye dropped lower. She seemed to be considering; Scott could hear a whisper of thoughts in the background, conflicting urges and terrors that tasted like a lightning strike on the back of his tongue. _Where would I take her?_ Her tail lashed, sweeping a wall of sand over the eggs. _This has happened before. There are bad people. They killed my rider. They'll break my eggs._

"Is the Weyr full of bad people?" There was no way to scratch her without letting go of Lydia, but he tried to lean so he was pressed against her cheek. She seemed to like being touched that way. "You you think they'll hurt her?" 

_No. But...._

"Scott, what's going on?" Stiles whispered, head turned to watch the dragon warily.

"You can't hear her?" His fingers loosened around Lydia's shoulders in surprise. It took a quick grab to keep her from sliding to the ground. He looked around, meeting Allison's wide-eyed stare. "But she's— it's right there? Are you sure you can't hear her?"

Allison shook her head. "It doesn't matter what we can hear. Just make her listen."

 _No!_ The voice was louder this time, loud enough that the pain from before came rocketing back. _They'll take my eggs. I can't!_

Scott winced, knees threatening to buckle again. "What if we guard them?" he asked quickly, sharply desperate. "Would that be okay? If we watched them for you?" 

Suspicion. Worry. Fear. 

"Please," he pressed, thinking it as loudly as he could. Trying to remember Lydia's face as she scribbled lessons on the wall, how she'd sung the numbers ballads the loudest. "She's going to die if we don't get help. I'll watch your eggs. Please help us."

Another swish of the tail, and a thoughtful hum. Then the dragon pushed to her feet, wings folding and unfolding to balance. She wrapped her foreclaws around Lydia carefully, curling them tight so the girl was locked in safely. Then her forearm cocked down low like a step, waiting. 

"One of you need to go with her," Scott said, checking that Lydia was well and secured. He didn't think she was at risk of being dropped, but he wasn't sure how good flying would be on her injuries. "Make sure to leave her somewhere she'll be found fast."

"You go," Allison said, giving Stiles a shove toward the offered leg. "We'll keep the eggs safe. Just be back as fast as you can."

Stiles gave her a look like he wasn't sure if she'd been in the sun for too long, but he started to hoist himself up onto the gold's forearm. Her shoulder was less easy—the climb was assisted by straps, but harpers weren't trained in physical things. It took both Scott and Allison to give Stiles the boost he needed to get up to the base of the dragon's neck, sandwiched safely between two jutting plates of bone. 

_Where will I take her?_ the gold asked, turning her head around to watch Stiles try and strap himself in with buckles not made for someone who wasn't in flying gear. _I don't know where to go in this place._

A sudden wash uncertainty made Scott feel like he was underwater, a sudden spinning and the displacement of not knowing which way was up. He wobbled and patted her shoulder. "Then go home."

The dizziness slowed as the dragon considered that, then solidified into something—a vision, a sensation of wings in the air and the moons over the edge of a mountain, cool air on hot skin. A memory. Her muscles bunched, and then she was springing into the air. Sand flew everywhere as her shadow skimmed up into the sky, blocking out the stars.

And then they were gone, leaving Scott and Allison behind on the sand. 

Neither of them moved at first. Then Allison let out a loud sigh and settled down next to the queen egg, curling her arms around her knees. Scott settled next to her, keeping his head turned up to the empty sky. After a minute, he felt a hand nudge his. He turned his palm over and was rewarded by having Allison's fingers slide through his to hold on loosely. 

"Why didn't you go instead?" he asked, not looking at her. "You could have stayed there."

At first she didn't answer. Then he felt her sigh and shift closer, shoulder brushing against him. Her hand tightened, just a single squeeze. "I think I would have. And the dragonman is going to notice if too many of us go missing. It's—it's better this way."

Neither of them said anything after that. The egg was a spot of warmth against his back, like it had soaked up the summer sun. When he ran a finger down it, it was hard as stone. He had a feeling that was a sign of some sort—there were teaching songs about eggs hardening on the hatching sands. But none of the songs said _how_ hard they had to be, or how long it was between hardening and hatching.

When Stiles became a Master Harper, Scott was going to make him write a dozen songs about the development of dragon eggs. Maybe the next person kidnapped on Search by a madman wouldn't be as lost.

The dragon and Stiles didn't take long coming back, appearing overhead with a soft breath of sudden cold. The gold curved down to land with an unsteady wobble, hide even paler than it had been. She didn't say anything to Scott, not even to warn him away from her queen egg, only curled her body around the eggs and closed all three lids with a great, exhausted sigh. 

Stiles slid down her shoulder like a staircase banister, landing with a loud thump. He took two steps, fell to his knees, and vomited.

Scott and Allison scrambled to their feet, but Stiles was already done, holding up a shaky hand. "I'm fine—I'm fine, it's just... wow." He shook his head, wobbling until Allison reached out to steady him. "I thought I was going to piss myself. It was just—nothing. Yards and yards of nothing."

"But you're back now." Sliding his arm around Stiles' ribs, Scott heaved his friend up to his feet. With Allison holding up the other side, they were able to keep him from sliding back to his knees. "Did Lydia make it?" 

"I—yeah, yeah, she did." Stiles tried to nod, but when he did, his eyes crossed and his expression twisted so tightly that Scott instinctively angled him away from their shoes. "We left her at a Weyr. I tried to tell them where to look for us, but I don't know if I got through." 

"They'll find us." Allison rubbed Stiles' back, tilting her head back to look at the sky. "It might take some time, but they'll find us." 

"What if it's not before hatching?" Scott couldn't help but ask.

She bit her lip. "Then we'd better hope they decide not to eat us right away."


	4. Chapter 4

Fort Hold spread out under their wings, small enough to better resemble a children's toy than a place people lived. Overhead, the sky was the crisp green of spring, and the sun wasn't blocked by a single cloud. The cliff side was strung with spots of color where hold folk were hanging bed linens out for airing. Armed guards gleamed on the heights, their heads craned to watch as they passed over. Derek signaled Niath to circle the Hold, taking advantage of the peace before starting their descent. 

Niath took his time easing down to ground level, eventually settling inside the Harper Hall's courtyard with a sharp back twist of his wings that threw dust everywhere. Faces peeked out open shutters and down from the drum heights, but they vanished quickly enough. It was the middle of the day, and the apprentices were hard at their lessons. It would be a while before any of them wrangled time free to go see the dragon. 

Derek slid down Niath's bronze shoulder, bending his knees to absorb the impact of landing. A sharp breeze tried to find cracks in his outer layer of flying gear. It was far from the bitter cold of High Reaches, but not even close to warm. "Will you be okay alone?" 

_The sun is almost warm today,_ Niath said, craning his head back to stare upward. Some of the pain lingering in his thoughts dulled to something close to tranquility, though the bite of approaching doom lingered. _I think I'll stay here._

"If you say so," Derek smacked his dragon's shoulder lightly. Niath answered by spreading his wings and stretching, flicking his tail out to cover as much space as possible. He sighed heavily, eyes sliding closed, a picture of content. 

Laughing softly, Derek patted his dragon again before making for the doors. 

He didn't make a habit of visiting the place often. Harpers were nosy by nature, and were the kind of person who could be trusted to dig into any small mystery until it gave itself up for the looting or they died horribly in the attempt. The long, questioning looks he got as he walked through the courtyard crawled across his skin like web spinners. Instinct put iron in his spine, made his steps crisper, his gaze more firm. 

Harpers being what they were, his warning stance didn't last long. A tall, brown-haired woman carrying a tall pile of wax tablets approached almost immediately. "Hello, Wingleader, I'm Julia. Can I help you?" Scars lined her face, streaking across her brow and diagonally down to her jaw, but her eyes were lively and her smile kind. By the knot on her shoulder, she was a full-fledged Master, which put him on guard. She'd had _years_ of practice at her trade. "Master Harper Deaton is attending business in the Hold, if you're here to see him."

Derek crossed his arms uncomfortably. A collection of apprentices, ranging from knee-high to nearly grown were peeking out of the halls, obviously listening in like the future troublemakers they were. The feeling of being watched wasn't helped by _actually_ being watched. "I need to see your records." 

That earned him a disbelieving look. "What sort of records?" 

There wasn't much room for his glare to harden, but Derek did his best. "Just records."

She pursed her lips thoughtfully, as if she might _actually_ say no. Which she had the right to, but then he'd _have_ to go to Deaton, and that would just be annoying. The Master Harper wouldn't let him through without some sort of explanation. 

Eventually, her nose wrinkled. "Tamron!" she called. A small, dark-skinned boy of maybe eight Turns jerked to awareness, suddenly distracted from staring at Derek. Julia waved him over and then shoved her pile of tablets into his arms, taking a moment to position them for maximum balance before giving him a little spin and push. "Take this to Master Healer Melissa. Wingleader, if you would follow me."

Without any choice left, Derek followed her down a hall opposite of the one she'd been headed to and down a flight of stairs, and then even further back into the depths of the cliff. Like Fort Weyr, Harper Hall—all of Fort, really—had been built using the ancient techniques that created glass-smooth stone and perfectly flat floors. They passed a dozen identical doors before she paused at one, pulling a key from her belt to open it. 

"We keep the records in here," she explained briskly, "as far from the children as we can. I'm sure you understand why." The door creaked open. Inside it was stone dark, not even a single basket of glows open. In the light cast from the hall, he could see rows and rows of record hides, all neatly filed away. 

He stared.

Julia flashed him a quick smile and shoved the nearest glow basket into his hands before turning to walk away. "Good luck, rider."

She got three steps before he managed to unstick his tongue and call, "There's no way I can get through this." 

Her stride paused, but she only twisted and gave him a polite, slightly smug smile. "You asked for records. I gave you records. Is there something more specific?" 

Looking at that smile, just saying _burn it_ and trying to sort through the mess on his own seemed impossibly tempting. But there were more important things than his own ego—they were on a time limit, and every day they lost was another day with an unaccounted for queen dragon. "I need a map of Igen," he ground out. "As complete as possible. Maybe an older one, if you can." 

Mild puzzlement ate at the edges of her smile. "Don't you have maps in the Weyr?" But Julia was already plucking the basket from his hands and brushing past.

Derek stayed close on her heels. He had a feeling that there might be bones of lost dragon riders buried somewhere in the dark cavern of the records room. "Not one that has what I'm looking for."

"And what are you looking for?" She lead him down three aisles and then took a sharp left. The doorway vanished out of sight, even the light it let through fading quickly into memory. "I can help, you know. We're not trained for nothing." 

"I don't know," Derek admitted reluctantly, turning his head to try and track their course. The shelves were rare things, made completely of wood, tall and dark with age. They stretched up over his head, stacked records poking out unevenly. Glow light cast odd, dancing shadows on the uneven ceiling where the Ancients hadn't bothered to smooth away the rough edges. "Have you ever heard of Beacon Hold?" 

"I can't say that I have." They hit something that at first seemed a dead end, but then his guide slipped sideways into a gap between shelves that he likely wouldn't have seen on his own. Up ahead was a true dead end, the very back wall of the room, lined end to end with shelves. "It's in Igen, you say?" 

"Maybe."

Julia snorted. "And people talk about harpers keeping secrets. We've nothing on dragon riders. Here." Reaching up, she picked through a stack of records before finally pulling down nearly an entire shelf worth. "Your maps, Wingleader."

They smelled like old leather and dust. Derek grimaced, but took the armload carefully. With any luck, he'd find one with what he needed. And if he didn't, he'd expand his search outside Igen. "There's one more thing. Have any of your apprentices gone missing lately?"

Scars tugged as her face fell, honest distress twisting her expression before she managed to hide it again. "Not recently. But..." She gave herself a sharp shake before turning on her heel to lead the way out. "Last summer one of our boys disappeared, along with a friend of his from Healer Hall. They'd snuck away before to see friends in the Hold, so we didn't think much of it. Just waited for them to come back."

"They didn't." 

Her head jerked in a single, sharp nod. "They didn't."

Neither of them spoke as she led him back out of the records room and to a nearby workroom. It was little more than a table and a stool, but it was better lit and didn't make him want to sneeze quite so badly. 

Dark curls hid her face as she laid one of the hides out on the table. "You know, the day he went missing, someone said there'd been a dragon seen out by the road." Her nails drummed against the map over the delicate sketch labeled _Igen Weyr_. "No rider visited, though. Isn't that strange?" 

"You think the Weyr took your apprentice?" 

"Did I say that?" she asked, but she didn't look up. "But it's curious. Two boys go missing when a dragon is sighted, and now here we are, months later, with turmoil in the Weyr. It does seem related."

That answered the question of how much the harpers knew at least. "No, it doesn't. This would have been very recent." Derek let his eyes skim over the map, noting the lines of roads and minor holds scattered through the desert. It was a recently made map, the ink still sharp and fresh. Shaking his head, he reached over for the next one of the pile to look it over. It was slightly older; apparently they were arranged by age.

Julia didn't move, either to leave or to help. He ignored it at first, focused on the maps under his hands. True to form, though, it didn't take long for the itch of eyes on him to build into something annoying. "Don't you have something better to do?"

"Not particularly." She laced her fingers over her knee, smiling brightly. "Why are you looking for Beacon Hold?" 

Derek weighed his words, then shook his head. "It's Weyr business."

Her brows pinched. Then she sighed, a great, labored sound, and lifted half the pile off itself to shove a piece at him from the middle of the pile. "If the other maps didn't have it, then it's likely abandoned. Check the older ones." 

He scowled at her and, surprisingly, she glared back until he grimaced and looked down at the hide. It was older—much older, with the faint fading and stiffness that came from decades of wear. Old or not, it didn't have the hold on it either. 

As soon as he pushed it aside, another, even older hide was shoved in his face. It clipped his nose enough to sting He snorted, but took the offending hide. "You're not going to look at any?" 

"No." Smiling, she leaned back, tipping the stool up on its back legs and using her knees under the table to stay balanced. The shift in weight made the hide tap under his nostrils. "This is just fine. These hides aren't getting any younger, rider."

"My name is Derek," he growled. The edges of the hide crumbled when he grabbed it, old and badly preserved as it was. "Use it."

She flashed him a smile that was at least half pleasure at having gotten under his skin. "Of course. _Derek_."

 _I like her,_ Niath piped up. He was still sunning himself in the courtyard, soaking in whatever warmth he could manage to find. When Derek focused on him, he could feel the sun's rays on outstretched wings; maybe it really _was_ warm for a dragon. _You should be less serious._

 _I'll take it into consideration._ Snorting, Derek bowed his head to look over the latest offering. The whole thing was starting to feel like a waste of time. Maybe Lydia had been lying after all. Or maybe she'd just been mistaken. But if there was one thing Derek would admit about himself, it was that he didn't let go of things. Better to waste his time pouring over desiccated maps in Harper Hall than twiddle his thumbs in the Weyr waiting while the dragons fretted themselves into sickness and the hourglass sped on. 

He went through ten more variations of the same map before one of them finally had it. Beacon Hold was barely a dot on the trader's route, not worth the illustrations that larger holds received. A dot in the middle of a sea of nothing. Routes connecting to it didn't have marked Thread shelters, though springs were noted with thoroughly detailed notes on their distance apart and water quality. 

"This is from the interval." Julia tapped her finger against a mark down in the corner. She'd migrated her stool closer to Derek to watch him work, though, as she'd said, she didn't make a move to assist him. "Master Harper Elber hasn't been around in fifty turns. It's probably abandoned." 

Derek's eyes slipped from the tiny trading hold to Igen Hold, which was really the nearest place that he recognized enough to go _between_. Even on dragon wing it would be a long trip. "Do you think so?" 

She shrugged. "If it were still around, you'd think it would be on more recent maps."

He frowned down at the map, committing it to memory. "Looks like I'm going to find out."

* * *

Just before dawn, the door banged open again. "Rise and shine, children!" the dragonman called, much too cheerily for any reasonable person. "You have a busy day. Up, up, up!"

Scott groaned and pulled away from Stiles' shoulder, rubbing his eyes and trying to get them to work again after a night of poor sleep. The pallet that they'd crafted from old cloth and dry-rotted wood was better than hard stone, but not by much. A bruise was developing on his hip and shoulder, and he was pretty sure that he was developing a permanent kink in his neck. 

"Do we at least get something to eat first?" Stiles asked, twisting around to hide his face in the small of Scott's back. There wasn't enough light to see much, but he looked _exhausted_. Scott rubbed at his hip until he finally lurched upright, yawning. 

"You'll be happy you didn't." 

Still rubbing his face, Scott looked up to glare and then froze. For the first time ever, the dragonman had stripped out of his Igen clothing, and his face was fully visible. Thread scars took up half of it, stretching all the way up into his hairline and over his half-missing ear. They trailed down under the collar of his loose, plain shirt, only to reappear running down his arm calf where he'd rolled up his sleeves and pant legs. 

His eyes fell on Scott, one eyebrow arching. "I know I'm handsome, but please, restrain yourself." He tilted his chin so the worst of it caught the light, sharp shadows spilling where scars had mounded up. The knife at his waist gleamed with the polish of a freshly sharpened blade. He hadn't even bothered with a sheath for it, just stuck it in his belt. "Where's the little red-haired girl? I'd have thought you'd all be fawning on her poor, martyred self."

Scott eyed the knife from his spot in the corner, fingers flexing against his knees. He wondered if it would be worth the fight to try and win it free. What he'd do if he had it. He didn't think it was in him to kill, but they were running out of choices. Two people had died, and there was no telling about Lydia, if healers would actually be able to help. 

As if he could hear Scott thinking, Stiles bumped up against his shoulder. When Scott glanced over, he shook his head slightly, frowning. He grimaced back, and Stiles glared. 

When none of them answered, the man snapped, "Well? Where is she?" 

"She died." Allison's voice was steady, but thick with exhaustion. She sat up from her spot between Kira and Erica, pulling her knees up to her chest under her night dress. There were still stains on it where she'd helped carry Lydia out to the dragon, though they'd done their best to wash them out. "Her wounds were too much. We took her to one of the rooms in the back."

"Of course she died. Of _course_." Scars pulled at the corner of his mouth as he smiled. "Hopefully you didn't leave her near the well. That's unsanitary."

"It was a storage room," Kira said, jaw tight and lips hard. "You can go see her, if you want. Since you're obviously so worried."

Five different heads swiveled to stare at Kira in horror, Scott's one of them. Stiles grasped desperately for Scott's wrist, and Allison looked like she was a breath from climbing over Boyd to shut Kira up. There wasn't a body in the storage room, obviously. There wasn't even a _pretend_ body—none of them had thought that far ahead. 

But the dragonman just laughed. "I'm sure I can." He knocked the toe of his boot against the door. "Now, come along children, unless you want to join the wherries." 

Protesting and grumbling, they all pulled themselves out of what little comfort they'd managed to obtain. The dragonman watched with unveiled amusement as they stumbled over each other. There wasn't enough material for everyone to have a pallet to themselves, so it was a trick of untangling sleep-leaded limbs and coordinating enough not to step on those who had yet to rise. Most of them managed it, but there were still sharp sounds of pain and apologies. 

When they were all more or less upright, he jerked his chin and led the way out the door. This time, no one argued. They were too tired, and memory of Thread was too fresh.

Once again, they were led over the dune toward the clutch of eggs. The dawn star sat firmly in the north east, violent red and menacing, and most of the stars had already faded into morning. On the eastern horizon, the sun hadn't even started to crest, only an orange haze lighting the sky. It spread out over the sand, giving them just enough light to see by. 

The sands had cooled overnight, though they were still warm underneath. The queen had wrapped her bulk around her eggs, wing stretched to cover them and keep the heat in. Scott felt her mild curiosity and exhaustion distantly, but she didn't say anything. Didn't even open her eyes. Next to her was a pile of wherry carcasses staining the sand red and a series of buckets. 

Behind Scott, someone gagged loudly.

"I don't expect any of you have experience with butchering," the dragonman said, skipping down the dune on bare feet. He strolled over to the dragon, climbing up her shoulder and taking a seat with the air of a Lord in his hold. "Luckily, you don't have to do a very good job. Just get as much meat off the bone as you can. Preferably in small chunks." When they still hesitated, he added, "The longer you wait, the higher the sun is going to get."

He patted the gold's shoulder. With a lurch, she sprang into the air, wings snapping out to glide in a slow circle that lurched up and down in exhaustion. The spiral slowly worked upward until, in a blink, they vanished.

There was a pause as they all stared, and then Erica snapped, "Don't be a bunch of _babies_. He'll be back, and the day isn't getting younger." She stalked forward to grab one of the buckets in one hand and a wherry leg in the other. It slipped off the pile with a wet-sounding thump, wings popping open. They dragged through the sand as Erica slowly pulled it over to what she deemed was a good enough distance from the rest. 

The others reluctantly followed her lead, pairing off to work together. Allison, surprisingly, took the biggest one, hefting it over her shoulder to carry off by herself. Scott and Stiles teamed up on one bird, each of them taking a hind leg to carry. Their bird had already been mostly gutted, its entrails a vivid mess of bloating pink-green that wasn't very far from the color of Stiles' face.

"You don't have to help," Scott offered quietly. "I can do your share." He'd seen worse when he had to help Healers working with bad accidents. Apprentices at Healer Hall got used to gore pretty quickly or they went home. Unless Stiles had been leaving out a lot of details, Harper Hall didn't even come close. 

"No, I've got it." Stiles flashed him a quick, if sickly, smile. His throat worked uncomfortably, but he didn't have the pinched look people got right before they vomited. "It shouldn't be—oh, _ew_." A violent shudder wracked Stiles' body as Scott started cutting the wherry open. He squeezed his eyes shut so tightly that two of his moles looked like they were going to merge together. "That's disgusting."

"Don't think about it." Scott nudged Stiles with his clean elbow and set to work sawing through the thick, greasy hide, carefully avoiding puncturing the entrails. That was one disaster he'd like to not deal with. His palms were already stained red, and the knife was the cheapest sort, the kind Smithcraft apprentices churned out by the dozen and mostly melted down for scrap. His elbow was already starting to get sore.

The wherry would have been hard to butcher even with a good knife. It was mostly fat, except where it was tough muscle and sinew and bones like rock. They worked through the first one in good time, getting all but the worst of it chopped into hand-sized chunks. By the time they were finished, they were both a bloody mess up to the elbows, and Stiles had joined the ranks of the rest who had vomited out what little their stomachs contained. 

As the rest of them worked, the queen popped in and out overhead, carrying crates and giant tubs in her forepaws that the dragonman immediately took into the hold. Scott tried to keep an eye on them, to figure out what they were doing. But there weren't any stamps to indicate what the crates held, and the dragonman only paused between trips long enough to let the queen check her eggs before climbing back up and taking off again. 

By the time they'd gone to get their second wherry, the sun had crested the horizon, and the sands were starting to warm uncomfortably. Scott bounced from foot to foot they dragged the avian away from the others, applying what he'd learned from the first to make it go faster. The pile of birds was almost gone—if they finished up fast, they'd be able to go inside and take turns washing before the others. 

Stiles had settled in, too. He even kept his eyes open as he helped balance the bird on its back, showing the gaping hole where a claw had pierced its breast. "At least my theory is getting validated," he grumbled, shoving with his shoulder. 

"Your theory?" While he talked, Scott shoved one of the wings into Stiles' hands. "Hold this open. Which theory?"

"The— you know— _ugh_ , hatching. My... that this is a Search." Stiles swallowed and turned his face, nose wrinkled at the scent dead wherry, which wasn't much better living wherry. "What else would we need buckets and buckets of meat for?" When Scott didn't answer, Stiles tilted his head to peek out of one squinched eye. "For the _hatching_ , dimglow."

" _Oh_." That made an awful lot of sense, when Scott put some thought into it. He stared down at the wherry, which was about ready to be turned over so he could get the offal out. The dragon appeared overhead, her massive shadow providing a moment of relief from the sun before she came in to land. "So, do you think they'll... hatch soon?"

"Fresh meat won't keep that long." 

"That's..." Terrifying. Completely and utterly terrifying. Scott shook his head, trying hard not to look over at the eggs, as if he could estimate how long they had. "Just... here, help me lift." Together, they hefted the beast over, giving it a good shake to make the majority of the organs fall out. What didn't fall, Scott reached in to scoop out. It was disgusting in so many ways, but he kept his face straight. If _he_ lost his stomach, then Stiles would again, and then it would be the Midsummer Gather all over again. 

_You're upset?_ Over by the eggs, the queen's head had twisted around to watch them. Her cheek nestled next to the big one, the one Scott was almost positive would be another queen. The others were mottled in a dozen of different shades, all creamy pastels swirled together. It was the only one that was a single solid, identifiable color. _Why are you frightened?_

 _We didn't choose to be Searched._ Twisting his arm, Scott started sawing through the thick hide over the breast, peeling it back to reveal the meat. _Everyone knows that people die at hatchings, and your rider kidnapped us, and we—_

 _He's not my rider!_ The sudden mental shout made Scott reel. It was louder than she'd ever been before. _My rider is dead!_

The knife slipped in his hands, scraping across his knuckles. He hissed and dropped it, shaking his hand at the sudden sting. Stiles grabbed Scott's arm to try and check the injury, but Scott's attention was locked on the dragon. "What do you mean, your rider is dead?"

"What?" Stiles demanded, grip tightening to the point of pain. "Her rider is _what_? Scott?"

The queen tucked her chin, claws digging long furrows into the dirt. _My rider is dead. Bad men killed her._ Faded gray eyes started to take an alarmed red tint around the edge of the facets. _He promised to keep my eggs safe from the bad men._

"He _is_ a bad man." Stiles was staring at him, and the others were starting to look up from their work. Scott shook his head and bent back to the half-butchered wherry, even though his hands were shaking. The dragonman was coming back over the dune. He wasn't looking yet, but Scott didn't want to know what would happen if he saw something suspicious. "Keep working. I've got this." _Why aren't you at the Weyr?_

She blinked two of her lids slowly, one after the other. _It's not safe._

 _Not safe at the Weyr?_ He could feel her uncertainty and upset like they were his own, slimy things making his nerves jump. _How did your rider die?_

 _She.... I don't know. There were eggs. Someone smashed the eggs and then they smashed her._ She fluttered her wings, stretching and settling them nervously in the corner of Scott's eye, unsettling the dragonman as he climbed the rigging up her shoulder. _He told me he'd protect my eggs! He told me..._

Her growing confusion was so thick that Scott had to force himself to breathe through it. The knife was limp in his hands, and Stiles wasn't even looking away from the wherry innards anymore. _That girl you took away last night—he was going to let her die. Does that sound like a man to trust with your eggs? With your rider?_

Emotions ran through her in a flood: upset, realization, anger. Determination. The glow in her eyes darkened to red. On her neck, the dragonman was just starting settle in. Her chin tucked against her chest, neck arched up in a perfect curve. 

_No._

A wall of rage slammed through Scott's chest, sending him to his knees in the blood-soaked sand. A half dozen hands grabbed for him, but a second later their attention shifted as the queen threw her head back and screamed. The dragonman grabbed for the straps as she threw herself into the sky with a violent jolt. Unbuckled straps snapped through the air as she climbed straight up, twisting and spiraling . Her rider slipped sideways, barely hanging on. 

They went so high, she become a speck of a shape in the pale green sky, wings spread, neck fully extended. Then her wings folded, and she fell. People screamed, someone shook Scott's shoulder, yelling at him to stop her, but he was frozen. At the last second, she snapped her wings out, pulling out of the dive with a sharp yank. 

Her rider didn't. He plummeted to the sand, landing with a dull thump a dragon's length away from the eggs. Nothing moved.

The queen screamed out her grief. Scott couldn't make his jaw work, couldn't tear himself away from the sharp, bitter-sweetness of revenge running through his veins—through her veins. 

_Take care of them._ Wings spread, she vanished. Every trace of her in Scott's head snapped into endless nothing, a blank space everywhere she'd touched. 

He was unconscious before his cheek touched the sand.


	5. Chapter 5

No matter Derek's good intentions, it took four days before he was able to go hunting in the desert. The decimation of a clutch had hit the Weyr hard, and just when they'd finished reeling from that, there was Thread fall to fly, with its ever-present injuries and exhaustion. He had to see to his wing, and then to a dozen other tasks that had suddenly become vital. The mystery of the missing queen seemed to drop from memory, replaced by the constant business of Weyr life. Even Laura and their parents, who knew about the eggs, seemed to feel no urgency. 

Peter volunteered to go along by showing up at Derek's door some time before dawn and refusing to leave until Derek gave in. They started out as soon as dawn touched Igen's eastern horizon, hours before it reached Fort. Even though it was still practically winter, the desert sands put off enough of an updraft that Niath barely needed to put in any effort to flying. Mountains trailed behind them, shrinking into foothills and then to place markers in the distance. 

Niath was in a good mood. Memory had faded to the point where the dragons weren't always certain why they were sad, and time had dulled the emotion itself. Derek did his best not to dwell, to give his dragon something other than the feeling of loss to focus on. Having the wind under their wings and clear sky sparkling a clear green above promised to be a good distraction for them both. 

The sun was starting to reach its peak when Niath hummed, the sound rumbling through his chest like a very contained earthquake. _We should go flying more, when there isn't Thread. This is nice. It's all quiet, but it doesn't feel empty._

 _It doesn't, does it?_ Leaning forward, Derek gave the neck between his knees a companionable slap. Underneath them, the Igen desert was miles of barren sand and rock, but Niath was right, it didn't feel empty. Instead there was a feeling of waiting, of something just out of sight. _Maybe we'll find a wherry for you to snack on._

_Wherries are stringy._

_But you'd eat it._

His dragon's neck arched around to give him a sharp, disdainful look. For the first time in too long his eyes were clear, unadulterated green, without a hint of yellow or red. _That doesn't mean it's not stringy._

Derek smiled. _Don't eat any wherries we find, then._

 _Now you're being unreasonable,_ Niath snorted, angling his wings to catch an updraft. _That's a terrible idea._

Seated behind Derek, Peter tugged at his flight jacket. "I think there's something down there!" he yelled over the wind, pointing. 

The sleepy, comfortable feeling that had been settling over Derek's shoulders cracked like an egg shell. He craned his head, but with the sunlight shining directly down on the sand, he might as well have been blindfolded for as much good as it did. Light reflected back, shining painfully bright until even he had to look away again. _Niath? Do you see anything? Is she down there?_

Uncertainty. Confusion. Sorrow. _I don't know._ Yellow distress crept back into Niath's eyes, swirling along the edges of the faucets. He dropped his head, searching. _I can feel her sadness, but I can't hear her. I don't—there!_

Peter cursed and gripped Derek tight as Niath folded his wings and dove, pulling up at the very last second so his tail left a trail in the sand. They skimmed along the surface for a few dragonlengths before Niath turned in a tight circle. _Down there. Do you see it?_

Leaning over Niath's side, Derek squinted down at the sand and wished he'd thought to bring tinted goggles. The reflection was so bright that it took him a moment to spot what his dragon had. A spiral of stones curved across the top of the cliff, bright white against shining gold sand. 

_Land_ , he ordered. _In front of the cliff, please._

Niath snorted but did was he was asked, curling down to land in what Derek would have called a courtyard anywhere else. In this place, it was just another sand pit. The walls surrounding it were nearly buried, barely even visible from above. Niath clipped one, sending a rain of sand down from the ledge.

Surprisingly, Peter went first, sliding down Niath's shoulder and stumbling away to kneel by the wall, pulling something out of the sand for inspection—a piece of metal, new enough that it still had some shine. It was so obviously an excuse that Derek had a pang of sympathy For a dragonless man, flying must have been very close to a nightmare, a living reminder of everything lost. But Peter had wanted to go, to be another set of human eyes. Dragons had excellent vision, but they didn't always understand what was important. 

Shaking it off, Derek turned to the hold, standing empty and lifeless above them. "Hello?" he yelled, unhooking himself from the riding harness and sliding down after his uncle. Nothing replied. There wasn't even a tunnel snake in sight. It was a small thing, set entirely in a rough cliff. Metal shutters and doors had been worn by time, until they blended into the rock and dirt. All of it matched Lydia's description, down to the odd shape of the courtyard.

He slogged through the loose, sinking sand to the main entry. The door was closed, but unbarred, and pushed open without much effort. Inside were clear signs of former habitation—pallets laid out on the floor, a bucket that might have once held water. One entire wall was covered in charcoal equations and rough, child-like sketches connecting series of dots, drawings of a sunrise labeled with different seasons. Old hides were piled in a corner, scattered haphazardly, as if they'd been abandoned mid-stride.

 _Do you think this is where they're staying?_ he asked Niath, toeing at a pile of ragged cloth. Underneath it some old, brittle wood had dry-rotted nearly to dust. Another handful of records had been left there too, text faded thin but mostly legible, tucked under the cloth as if for safe-keeping. It was a hodgepodge of things: some music, trading routes, more math and, most damning, the personal records of the one-time Holder. The more faded ones had been used as a list, notes scribbled in smudged charcoal. Nothing particularly useful, but enough to draw some conclusions. _It's definitely Beacon Hold._

 _She's not here._ Whatever cheer flying had put in Niath's voice dulled at the edges. Derek felt his dragon nosing through the sand, despondent. _I don't think she has been for a long time. I can't feel her. Just echoes._

Maybe the queen had found better, warmer sands. Maybe the eggs had hatched and they'd moved on to hide somewhere else. Could dragons think that far ahead, plan that way? Much as he loved Niath, Derek doubted it. They were too much creatures of the present for that sort of calculation. The future concerned them even less than the past. 

A sudden ripple of surprise ran through Niath's thoughts, followed by a quick burst of excitement and the sensation of sand flowing through his claws. _Peter says we have found something. Come see._

Derek looked down at the hides in his hands before dropping them back to the floor and turning back to the door. He pulled it closed behind him on habit, only belatedly realizing the ridiculousness of closing up an abandoned hold. Snorting at himself, he dropped down the small ledge between rock and sand and followed the pull of his dragon's thoughts.

The bronze was nowhere in sight, but his mindvoice was loud and clear. Derek followed it, climbing a mound of sand that had built around what used to be a courtyard wall. Down below was a giant basin, where the sand had run up against the hold fortifications and formed a bowl. 

His uncle and dragon wallowed in the middle of it, digging a hole in the sand. Peter had discarded his flying jacket, and his tunic was already damp with sweat. In the sun, the scars on his face had an extra shine, as if they were made of wax rather than flesh. 

Derek slid down, dropping a hand to the sand to keep from pitching top over tail down the steep slope. "What is it?"

"Come see." Peter shuffled aside, waving Derek closer. In the sand, something metal glinted, much larger than the scrap Peter had been toying with before.

Niath helpfully used his foreclaws to lift the object out of the hole. Sand poured off, revealing it to be a flamethrower. The leather straps that would have held it on the user were long since eaten away by Thread, but there was no doubting what that metal canister was. His childhood had been filled with its like. Nothing kept a flight of curious boys out of trouble like busy work, and maintaining a flamethrower was some of the busiest. 

Carefully, Derek took it from Niath's claws, turning it over to check the base. The mark was undoubtedly Smithcraft, but the maker wasn't one he recognized. A journeyman's work, maybe. "Where did you come from?" he muttered to himself, running his hands across the metal. Exposure had left it worn, rusted in places from the few rains Igen got a year, but it was undoubtedly newer than the rest of the hold. Older than it should have been, though, if it had been abandoned after Lydia arrived at Fort. "Is there anything else?"

"More of the same." Peter reached in to push more sand aside. There was metal under there, suspiciously angled lumps that, once he'd looked twice, were obviously unnatural. "Quite a few of them, really, and not buried deeply at all."

"They couldn't have been for Thread to get to them through the sand." In the sun, the metal was quickly losing the little bit of coolness being hidden had given it. It wasn't the only thing that was warming up. Without the chill of flying, his jacket was becoming a mess of sweat. Derek set aside the flame thrower and his jacket both, using the former to keep the latter out of the sand. Then he grabbed Niath's leg and used it to lower himself into the hole. 

By dragon standards, it _wasn't_ very deep. Three feet at the most, where the sand had piled up the highest. But it was full. Most of them were still buried, but it didn't take much work to unearth the top layer of them to reveal row after row of hastily piled metal canisters. 

Together they counted out the visible canisters, hissing in disbelief as the number rose. Twenty, maybe thirty flame throwers had been stacked together and left to the weather. They had hold marks from Benden, Igen, Telgar, a dozen smaller holds he didn't recognize offhand. There was no indication of why someone would have a stack of flamethrowers, much less why they'd abandon them. Out in the desert, Thread left alone would starve. All anyone needed to do was stay out of its way.

His thoughts drifted back to the girl in the Weyr, with her obvious Threadscore and burns. But the flamethrowers had been buried for a long time. The last Thread fall over Beacon would have been weeks before Lydia was burned. Too unlikely to be a coincidence, too unlikely to be related. 

Frustrated, he kicked at the sand, wondering if it was worth uncovering the whole lot. The lure of maybe finding that one hint that would explain everything was hard to ignore. The reality that anything not carved into rock or metal would have long since been eaten was, too.

"Did you find anything else?" he asked Peter, craning his head to check the sun's position. It was nearly midday, but now that he'd been there once he could find it again. For whatever that was worth. Some useless old tanks and a lot of sand weren't nearly the clues he'd been hoping for. Failure was a bitter brew. 

"Just this." Peter patted the nearest flame thrower, looking down at it thoughtfully. "It suggests we're on the right course, at least. Someone was fighting Thread here, and left in a hurry. We only need to track them." 

Niath folded his front legs and rested his chin in his sand. _We'll find them. Don't be sad._

Taking a deep breath, Derek closed his eyes and forced himself soak in his dragon's quiet support. There was still time. The queen hadn't been causing trouble yet, other than by existing. Chasing their own tails would get them nowhere. "You're right. We _will_ find them." He opened his eyes to look out over the sand, the faint curve of the hold on the horizon. "Let's go home."

* * *

Scott clawed closer to consciousness, pushing up against what felt like a barrier between his mind and himself. Cold stone under him, someone rubbing his shoulder, a dribble of cool water. He could feel it, but muffled. His head swam, Sounds faded in and out, wavering uncertainly before coalescing into words. 

"—ppened out there?" Allison hissed, sounded at once too close and too far away. Her voice echoed painfully in the hole between his ears, ricocheting off bone and digging into his brain. 

"I don't know!" Stiles' voice was too high-pitched, panicky, on the verge of cracking. Scott wanted to reach for him, but he felt weighted down. The most he could manage was to make his fingers twitch. "He just— he just fell over. Maybe it was the heat." 

"It wasn't even that hot yet," Isaac said, while someone ran their fingers across Scott's shoulder, then patted nervously. "And we can't blame everything on the heat."

A voice Scott didn't recognize gulped down a loud breath of air before saying, "What if the dragon doesn't come back? The dragonman was our only food supply! We needed him!" 

"Not true," a girl—Kira?—said, just a little too cheerfully. The echoing faded a little, voices starting to sound more solid. "We've got all this wherry meat, and the dragonman filled one of the storage rooms with ice, so it might even keep for a while."

"Wherry meat we need for the hatchlings, if we don't want them to eat us instead," Stiles hissed. A weight that was probably his slumped over, head slamming down into Scott's gullet. 

The bubble around Scott's thoughts shattered. He gasped, rising up to clutch at his stomach. Hands grabbed him from behind, holding him up when he would have collapsed back again. "Breathe!" Allison ordered, slapping him between the shoulder blades.

Stiles shook his arms, flailed, and then grabbed his cheeks instead. "You're back! What happened? Are you okay?" 

"I'm fine." Scott slumped forward into his friend's shoulder, taking the first advice and focusing on breathing. His head still felt packed with wool, but everything was back to knife-sharp clarity. Including the memory of what had happened. A shudder ran down him. "I'm okay, just give me some time." 

Allison slid in next to him, rubbing his shoulders gently. In the corner of his eye, he could see her trying to force a smile. It didn't come easily. Her cheeks didn't even get dimples. "Time's something we have plenty of." 

"Yeah, plenty of time. Until we all starve," Erica snarled, kicking at the stone floor. She still had dried wherry blood caught in her hair. "When we get down to cannibalism, I call dibs on Greenberg. She doesn't look like she's too stringy."

"Hey!" 

Scott pulled himself away from Allison and Stiles, pushing to his feet even though he was almost positive his head was going to float away in even a light breeze. He held onto his friends shoulders to stay upright. "No one is going to starve. We've got a chance now that we didn't have before. We have to take it." A series of skeptical expressions met his gaze. Even Stiles was grimacing. "Look, we have food and water, right? And there's a road. It has to lead _somewhere_." 

"Yeah, it did. Back when there were people here." Boyd pushed forward to stand by Erica, arms crossed. "That was turns ago. It's a suicide run. How do we know all those other holds haven't up and been abandoned, too?" 

"We don't." Allison gripped Scott's arm to hold him steady as she stood, slipping in against his side to continue holding him up. The few parts of her night dress that hadn't already been ruined from sevenday of constant wear had lost the fight against butchering wherry "But Scott's right. Those eggs are going to hatch any day, and none of us know what to do with that. If we don't move now, it's only going to get harder." 

A tiny blond girl from Keroon, Heather, curled in around her knees in the corner. "But what if the dragon comes back?"

"I don't think she will." Stiles stared at the floor, skin pasty under his burgeoning sunburn. His hands clenched and unclenched around his knees, harper's calluses scraping battered blue pants. "We're on our own."

No one moved or spoke. Scott wasn't sure anyone was even breathing steadily. Then Kira slowly rose to her feet. putting herself at Allison's shoulder. Another person joined her, crossing over from behind Boyd. Stiles climbed upright, taking Scott's other side. One by one, people moved, until three quarters of the captives were standing behind him, staring across the hall at the others. 

Boyd turned, looking over his group, finishing with Erica and Isaac, who just stared back wordlessly. When he finally turned to Scott, his expression had fallen from stubborn determination to resignation. "All right, Lord Holder. What do you have in mind?"

* * *

The rest of the day was a whirl of activity. Those with good dark vision were sent back to the store rooms to see what was still usable of what had been left behind. Stiles and a few other volunteers scoured the trading logs to try and find clues about which direction would be most likely to have another hold close by. Allison took over handling the wherry meat, moving some to storage and having some other pieces cooked for travel. 

Scott took the first watch on the eggs. He used the queen egg and abandoned flamethrowers as a shade, shifting now and then to stay as much in its shadow as possible. Even with that it was miserably hot. Sand got into his trousers, up his shirt, even in his hair. The egg shell was almost too hot to use as a backrest; after his first attempt felt like it scorched the skin from his bones, he had to keep easing back until he'd adjusted enough to stand it. However long it was, the shadow wouldn't last once the sun climbed high enough, but Scott would take what he could get while it was there.

Someone had moved the dragonman's body from where it had landed. He didn't even want to ask where it was. As long as he didn't know, he didn't have to think about it.

After about an hour in the sun, Kira appeared atop the big dune, lugging a dripping bucket. It splashed promisingly as she lumbered through the sand, hefting it in little hops. Scott scrambled to his feet to help, but she waved him off, carrying it by herself all the way over to the eggs. Then she proceeded to fall dramatically face-first into the slightly cooler sand at the egg's base. 

"How are you doing this?" she whined, flailing a little deeper into the shadow, shuffling her feet to tuck them away. "This could melt a dragon."

Laughing, Scott dropped down beside her, helping himself to the cup hooked on the side of the bucket. He helped himself to a drink, then dribbled some over the back of Kira's neck. "It's not that bad. Could be worse. It's not even midmorning."

One of Kira's hands flopped around blindly until she found his knee and smacked it. "Don't say things like that. It's bad enough as it is." 

He laughed again, leaning back against his single safe spot on the eggshell. The egg barely cleared the top of his head when he was sitting, forcing him to slump further down to keep from burning his scalp in the sun. His imagination painted little movements in the shell against his back, but it had to be just that: imaginings. Any movement strong enough for him to feel probably—hopefully—wouldn't occur until right before hatching. 

There were undoubtedly things the eggs would need. Turning, at least—he'd seen the queen rotate them around a few times. But they were too big for a few paltry humans to manage it. It would be like trying to flip a boulder. Watching for tunnel snakes or cracks in the shells were the only things they even had a chance at. 

Hopefully it would be enough. Scott had a hard enough time picturing how they would survive the hatching. A bad hatching didn't bear considering. 

After a few minutes of dramatic wallowing, Kira sat up and scooted in closer to the egg, hunching to stay in the shade. "Do you really think they'll be able to get help before... you know?" She flicked her fingers at the queen egg. "That?"

"We have to try, don't we?" Using an index finger, he traced out shapes in the slightly cooler sand under them rather than meet her eyes. "Dragons don't fly here. If we don't go find help, it's not going to find us." 

Kira was quiet. When he risked a glance up, she was staring at her bare toes, wiggling them in the sand. For some inexplicable reason, the dragonman had taken all of their footwear—there wasn't a single pair of boots among them. It wasn't so bad when they were in the hold, or when they had to go outside for only a short time, but much longer than that would be terrible. More than a few of them still had tender soles from the time they'd spent fighting Thread.

He hadn't thought of how they'd solve _that_ problem yet. It was just one more in a long string of them he hadn't solved. Plans weren't usually his best point. As a rule, Stiles was the one who came up with them, and Scott was the one who minimized the catastrophe that resulted. But everyone who'd crossed the room had done it to stand behind _him_. Not Stiles. Him. The dragon had trusted him with her eggs. Everyone was putting their hopes on _him_.

And now Kira was sitting there, asking him about a future he wasn't sure he could see, even though it might only have been hours away. It left him cold in the hot sun, skin clammy, stomach turning like it had anything to be rid of. 

Scott filled his lungs with hot, dry desert air, holding it for a count of seven before slowly letting it out through his nose. Once his heart was settled again, he reached out to touch Kira's shoulder, squeezing it. "We're going to survive. It's not going to be easy, but we will." 

"I know. I trust you." The smile she gave him was full of earnest faith. 

He hoped it was well placed.

* * *

South was the most likely road, according to Stiles' best efforts. The records had mentions of "a short jaunt south" and seemed to think there was a beach that way somewhere—sometimes the holders who took the journey brought back pretty shells and such. Where there were beaches, there were fishing holds, even if they weren't directly on the road. North, as far as they could tell, was only Igen, and the mountains were much too far away to make that a likely prospect for rescue. 

They cobbled together supply packs from what they could find. Old cloth that hadn't rotted turned into carefully folded bags that would double as awnings against the heat of the day. Dried up wineskins that could still hold liquid were stuffed full of water, as much as they could carry. The ones that leaked like fishnets were opened along the seam and repurposed into serviceable slippers. Wherry meat for travel they cooked as thoroughly as they could without a proper pan or supplies, wrapping it in cleaned oilcloth from the stores. 

The volunteers—Greenberg and another girl named Faira—left just after sundown, using the light of the first moon to see by. The entire group saw them off, standing on the cracked remnants of the road and watching two figures dwindle in the distance. They'd travel mostly at night, would try to stop at safe points and water, if they could find any. No one really thought they would.

Scott had been firm in saying that if they reached half their supplies with no hope in sight, they were to turn around. No one thought they would do that, either, but he had to say it.

When Greenberg and Faira were out of sight and everyone else had gone inside, Scott went to watch the eggs. The queen had trusted him with them before going _between_. That, at least, wouldn't be something he'd let down.

* * *

For the second time in less than a day, Derek stood in the courtyard outside Beacon, but with a very different companion. 

"This is definitely the place." Lydia rubbed her arms absently, freshly sheared hair curling around the nape of her neck. The cold from _between_ still had her in its grasp. Her wounds had mostly healed, but they were still tender enough to make more than a sweater inadvisable, and a flight jacket was right out.

"You're certain this is it?" Derek demanded. "Absolutely certain?" 

"Would you like a Harper-sworn oath?" she snapped. "I can pen it in blood, if you like. Yes, I'm certain. It just— why is it so _cold_?" A hard, dramatic shiver ran down her, only partly forced. "I should be baked through by now, but I can't seem to get warm."

"Deserts don't hold heat well," Derek answered absently, craning his head to look up at the cliff face. Niath perched at the top, claws dug in to stay balanced. _Well? What do you think?_

 _It is a cold day,_ the bronze replied, apparently choosing to miss the point rather than take sides. He had, against all reason, taken a liking to Lydia. _Too cold for eggs to hatch._

 _Really? I hadn't noticed?_ Rolling his eyes, Derek stepped around Lydia and headed for the door, which was still closed after his last visit. Sand had started to pile up against it in a little mound at the corners, but the wind was angled enough that it was still mostly clear. "You should at least come inside and look around. Maybe you'll see something to explain where they went." 

Lydia snorted, almost at the exact same time that Niath said, _You would have seen that already._

Ignoring the unforgiving audience, Derek pushed open the door. It was exactly as he'd left it: rough bedding askew, piles of records still scattered, most of it still with a heavy layer of dust. 

Behind him, Lydia lingered in the doorway, looking around with a small frown. She took a few steps in, dragging the tip of her borrowed slippers to make a line in the dust. "This isn't right," she murmured, crossing the line. Her foot crashed down on it, obliterating the work. "It shouldn't be... It looks like the place, but it just doesn't seem right." 

"What doesn't?"

She shook her head, short hair fanning out. "I don't know. It just... there's too much dust. It hasn't been _that_ long. How is there this much dust? And— and _this_!" With quicker movements than he'd seen from her since she tried to hit him with a pillow, Lydia darted over to one of the pallets and snatched something off of it. "This was my bed, but this isn't mine. If they'd left right away, then where did this come from?"

"It's been almost a month—" Derek started to say. For his trouble, he got the cuff thrown at him. He snatched it out of the air, just before it hit his shoulder.

"A month shouldn't have done this!" Lydia insisted, jaw set in pure stubbornness. She nudged at one of the piles of records with her toe, flipping one over. They were so old and dried out that it barely bent at all, the charcoal lettering on them matched by smudged finger prints. "It looks like it's been here for ages instead of a month. And why is it so sharding _cold_? This is a desert, not High Reaches!" 

"Because it's only spring. Give it time," Derek said absently, looking over what she'd thrown. It looked like the start of a leather cuff that someone had lost their temper on. Delicate flowers had been etched around the border, marred by stab wounds and ugly scratches. Heat had dried it out, leaving it to crack at the edges. 

It was incredibly familiar.

"It's _summer_ ," Lydia snapped, voice climbing in volume. "Are you even listening?"

"No." Reaching into his pocket, Derek pulled out the cuff Laura had been working on. He'd never bothered to give it back, or even to get rid of it, so it had simply sat forgotten in his flight jacket. Now he held it up to the one Lydia had thrown. They were nearly identical, only the dry cracks in the one to distinguish them.

 _Maybe it's summer when she is from_ Niath's presence pushed in alongside his, giving him the odd sensation of duality that occurred when a dragon borrowed his rider's eyes. _Maybe they went to summer._

"But that's impossible." 

_So is hatching eggs in cold sand._

Derek flipped the cuffs around in his hands, staring at them. "We should get back to the Weyr." He had a few questions for his Weyrleaders about what, exactly, _impossible_ meant. "It's almost—" 

The world shifted sideways, slipping out of focus. Distantly, he felt Niath's panic, a sudden roar of secondhand grief and fury shaking down the link between them. Abruptly, it dimmed, and everything faded to blackness. 

"Derek? _Derek_!" 

He came back to himself sprawled on the floor with Lydia leaning over him. She cupped his face. It would have been touching, if her nails weren't dug into his cheeks and her teeth bared. "Don't you dare die on me," she hissed. "I am _not_ getting trapped in this pit again, do you hear me?" 

"I'm not dying." Batting her hands away, he pushed upright, lurching sideways when his stomach threatened to upend itself. "Niath, what in Faranth's name happened?" 

_Something's wrong._ Above them, Niath spread his wings and keened low and soft enough that Derek could only hear it through their connection. It clawed through his heart and settled deep in his chest, a weight made of razors. _Something is coming._

Stunned, Derek swayed sideways into Lydia. Surprisingly, she wrapped an arm around him instead of shoving him off. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"I don't..." _Something is coming._ "We have to go! Now!" Scrambling to his feet, Derek bolted for the door, leaving Lydia to follow. They burst into the courtyard just seconds before a gold dragon and rider blinked into existence overhead, wings spread to circle tightly. Ichor dripped from her flanks, staining them vivid green in the setting sunlight.

Karenaeth.

A wave of sorrow thick as fog nearly sent Derek to his knees. Niath screamed. Spreading his wings, he leaped off the edge of the cliff, curving upward.

Immediately, Karenaeth roared back, turning on wingtip to try and knock him out of the sky. Caught by surprise, Niath tumbled top over tail. He barely caught himself before hitting the ground, landing in an awkward splay of limbs in the courtyard. By then, the gold had already circled back around and was climbing higher.

On her back, the rider raised one hand in a salute. Then they winked out. 

"Where did they go?" Lydia demanded, grabbing Derek's arm to drag him closer to where Niath was untangling himself from himself. "Was that her? What just happened?"

Bronze wings blocked out the sunlight as Niath straightened himself out. His head hung low. _Talia is gone,_ he said, barely a whisper between Derek's ears. _Peter is with her._

The news rocked Derek down his bones. He blinked back tears and rubbed Niath's nose. There was no time for grief. _That was Peter?_

 _Karenaeth said that Peter promised to keep her eggs safe. But the Weyr is safe? I don't understand._ Niath twisted his head upward again, wings rustling. _Chiereth and Laura come._

Right on cue, another gold flickered into view—Chiereth. She spiraled slowly downward, eventually coming to a clumsy landing just beside them. Claw marks decorated her chest and had decimated most of the flight straps. They flapped loose, snapping whenever she moved too quickly. 

Laura slid down without them, stumbling to her knees in the heavy sand. She wasn't even in flying gear, but in a loose dress, with her belt hastily buckled over it. 

Derek grabbed her arm and yanked her up to her feet. "What in the name of the first egg is going on?" 

"I take it they were here." Laura rubbed her chest, where a bruise the size and shape of Chiereth's neck ridges was forming. " _Shards_. I was so close." 

"They were here, and now they're gone." Lydia planted herself beside Derek, arms crossed, expression firm. In her borrowed clothing and short hair, she looked almost like a rider. She didn't even flinch when Chiereth turned her head to look down at her, nose still smeared with blood. "That was the dragonman, wasn't it? You found him." 

"More like he found us." Laura smiled faintly at her and leaned back against Chiereth's side, eyes closing. Her lips trembled, but her voice was firm as she said, "It's... Mother's dead. Chiereth and I were already in the air when she died. We saw Karenaeth take off with Peter on her back and followed. He's been taking her _between_..." Suddenly she laughed. "I shouldn't even tell you this."

"Tell me _what_?" Derek fought off the urge to give his sister a solid shake. She was obviously barely holding it together. "Our mother's dead; this isn't the time to keep secrets!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Laura looked up and bared her teeth in a snarl. "I'll tell you, but... only Weyrleaders and a few others know this. Lydia, you need to step away, if you ever want to go back to your Hold." 

Lydia's lips flattened into a hard line, her eyes falling. Then she shook her head. "If it will help me find my friends, then tell me." 

Nodding, Laura took a deep breath. "Dragons can go _between_ points in time the same way they do places, as long as they know where and when they're going. The Weyrleaders think that's how the gold—how _Peter_ and Karenaeth have been hiding. We can search everywhere, but we can't search every _when_. I'm not even sure that was our Peter just now." She ran her hand through her hair, grabbing a handful and yanking in frustration. "Not that it matters. We have no idea when they are. They could be a sevenday in the past, and we'd never know."

Niath bumped his nose into Derek's shoulder. _I saw where he took her,_ he said. _They're very loud. Would that be when he took her, too?_

"Are you certain?" Derek turned his head to stare at his dragon, who nodded, thoughts bright with affirmation. "Niath thinks he knows where Peter was going."

A new light entered Laura's eyes. "Was it enough to take us there?" 

_I think so. It was here, but not here?_

As soon as Derek relayed that, Laura sprang into action, swinging back up Chiereth's shoulder. "Then let's go! We can't risk losing him again!" 

"He'll tell us where my friends are, right?" Following Laura's lead, Lydia grabbed the climbing straps and was quickly scaling Niath. Her size and inexperience worked against her, making her struggle to get past the first few knots. 

"If not now, eventually." Cupping his hands, Derek caught Lydia's foot and boosted her up until she could get her other foot in one of the loops. "Niath, do we have enough for a jump _between_? You have to be absolutely sure."

 _I think I am._ But there was a waver in his dragon's voice, a hint of uncertainty. 

Derek grabbed the straps and started hauling himself up after Lydia. "Show me." 

The place was much like Beacon Hold. Almost exactly like it, as seen coming in from the north. But the stones were hazy, a blur where Derek knew they were actually a spiral, and the sun was gone from the western horizon, leaving a dusky twilight behind. 

The leather cuffs weighed heavily in his pocket. Two of them, identical in make and mistakes. It couldn't be a coincidence.

It was risky. A dragon needed a solid visual to go _between_ , or they risked getting lost forever. _Between_ time... 

But they couldn't fail. Because they'd already succeeded.

 _Show Chiereth._ Swinging up into place, he snapped himself in behind Lydia and gripped the straps in front of her. Perched on her dragon, Laura raised her hand and pumped it in the signal to take off. 

Together, the two dragons sprang upward, getting a startled shriek from Lydia. They swayed with each wing beat, gaining height length by length, until Niath had enough room to turn the strain into an easier glide. Chiereth curved around, taking her place in the front as they spiraled over to come in from the north, just the way the visual had shown. 

Beacon Hold spread out under them. Derek stared down, imprinting it on his memory exactly and, piece by piece, replacing it with the differences. The fading sunset slightly farther south, the stars overhead, a white spiral of stones on the top of the cliff. 

One more time, Laura raised her hand. Derek held his breath. 

It fell. 

They hung in the air and then, between one wing beat and the next, the world vanished into the cold nothing of _between_. Out of habit, Derek counted the seconds, while Niath's reassuring murmur filled his head. At fifteen, the cold turned into a sudden heat, and the endless black was replaced by the fading dregs of daylight and a sky full of stars. Beacon was a sea of shadows, the cliff face nearly invisible in the dark. Chiereth was still in point position, guiding them back to the ground. 

_Is she here?_ Derek leaned over, getting a squawk of annoyance from Lydia. Without the moons to see by, it was practically pitch. They passed over the hold, into the dip where the flame throwers had been. He could see movement, a frantic scurry of movement, hear shouts. 

Dozens of jeweled dragon eyes gleamed at them from down below.

 _No,_ Niath hummed, a thread of glee winding through his thoughts. _But they are._


	6. Chapter 6

Time passed slowly. Some people still tried to sing songs, to play children's games, and Stiles put in a good effort at telling stories, but they were all too tense for distraction to take effect. There'd been a little more than a wherry each—fifty pounds of meat per bird, and the ice hold was firm enough to last for longer than the meat would. Knowing all of that didn't help anyone's tension when Allison took inventory at the end of each day, when Scott checked the eggs every afternoon. 

Four days after Greenberg and Faira left, it all came to a head. 

Erica burst into the main hall, shedding sand from her clothes as she skidded to a stop, leaving the door to swing closed by itself behind her. "They're moving!" she gasped, clutching at the wall next to her. "One of the little ones— it started to rock."

" _What_?" Scott hit his feet so fast that his head swam. The stick game he'd been playing with Stiles scattered at his feet, tokens rolling in every direction. "What do you mean, they're _moving_?" 

She'd started to develop freckles after so much time under the sun, and they stood out like ink splotches where she'd gone pasty with fear. "I think they're hatching."

His lungs suddenly didn't seem to want to stretch for air. Scott closed his eyes and took a shuddering, forced breath. He hadn't let himself think about what would happen if the eggs hatched before they were rescued. Hadn't dared consider it. And now it was too late. "I need people to go get meat from the ice hold. As much as you can carry." The people closest to the back tunnels nodded and scrambled to listen. "Everyone else—"

"We need that meat!" Isaac argued, grabbing a girl's shoulder and yanking to keep her from getting past him. "You don't really mean to feed it to them, do you?"

Before Scott could move, Allison had yanked Isaac's hand off the girl, using it to whip him around and pin him face-first to the stone wall. "Which would you rather, hungry people, or hungry dragons?" she demanded in a low, stern voice. "If you want, we can feed _you_ to them instead."

Isaac shuddered visibly, closing his eyes tight. He nodded, jerking his head sharply. Allison let him up, dusting her hands off on her thighs. "Scott? You were saying?" She looked over at him, expectant, trusting. 

The others did the same.

Swallowing back the sudden rush of fear that had nothing to do with a clutch of dragons about to hatch on their doorstep, Scott looked over the frightened faces surrounding him. "We need the meat out of storage _now_ , and volunteers to put it out for the hatchlings. Does anyone have riders in their families?" Uncertain hands went up, more than half of them. "Did any of them say anything that might help? What happens after we feed them?" The hands fell. Scott cursed. 

People were coming back from the tunnels, arms wrapped around old, tattered cloth bundles that were already turning dark where the iced meat leaked through. He gave them a smile that hopefully wasn't too forced and grabbed one of Kira's two bundles of meat. "Anyone who wants to help, follow me. The rest of you, stay here." 

A depressingly few number of people followed him outside. Stiles, Allison, Kira, a few others. He couldn't blame them, though part of him wanted to. They'd all heard as much about hatching dragons as he had, and none of it good. It wouldn't be enough—ten of them trying to feed more than twice that in hatchlings. But they had to try. 

On the other side of the dune, hatching was already starting to take full effect. The sunset cast long shadows, turned the nest into a den of rocking, seething darkness. A few of the eggs had rolled away from the larger nest, and one had a crack in it large enough for a leg to stick through. The queen's egg wobbled back and forth, on the verge of toppling over. The sight burned into him more than anything else that this was happening, whether they were ready for it or not. 

"Get the meat close to the eggs!" he called out as Allison simultaneously yelled, "Don't get too close!"

The people following looked between them dubiously until Stiles leaped down the hill. He skidded, barely staying upright as he scrambled to the bottom. "Drop the meat and back off!" 

" _That_!" Scott followed on Stiles' heels, staying in the same groove he'd left in the sand and letting his weight carry him down. Sand crept up in his trouser legs, scalded his feet and ankles, but he reached the bottom in half the time. "Come on, we've got to move!"

Up close, the eggs were even more intimidating. Cracks were visible in most of the mottled shells, gleaming wet limbs poking out at the hatchlings fought their way free. Working as fast as he could, Scott tossed his bundle of meat down and ripped it open. It was still frozen solid, but starting to melt at the edges The ragged cloth was wide as a table, so he shoved pieces to far ends. With luck, it would distract two or three instead of just one hoarder. 

Still, no matter how he spread it, there wasn't going to be enough in what they'd been able to bring. "Someone go get more!" he shouted, turning to help one of the younger boys break apart his pieces of wherry to spread it out. "As much as you can!"

Somewhere in the nest, something snapped. Egg shards scattered, and a reed-thin roar rose up into the sky. A boy screamed, dropping his half-untied bundle falling back on his ass. Scott nearly collided with Kira on their way to help. They each took an arm and dragged him away from the nest. 

"Back! Get back!" Allison shouted, physically shoving people up the dune. They collected in a tight knot, as far away from the eggs as was possible. 

"What, did you start without us?" A crowd of shadows appeared at the top, blacker spots against the growing darkness of twilight. They scrambled down in twos and threes, loaded down with more of the stored wherry. 

"Thought you might need some help," Boyd grinned, dusting himself off with one hand and clasping Scott on the shoulder with the other. "What do we need to do?" 

Green hide gleamed damp in the last rays of the sun as the first hatchling shouldered her way past her siblings on unsteady feet. Red eyes flashed dangerously as she swung her head around, seeking something. She let out a low, questioning noise, almost a chirrup, and lurched over to sniff at the closest pile of meat. 

"Get the meat out there," Scott ordered. "While there's only one of them to deal with."

"You heard the man!" Erica swept an arm overhead, cutting off to the side. The others followed, curving as far around the green as they could. 

In the nest, other eggs were reaching the breaking point. More dragon voices sounded, soft and plaintive. A sharp pang of hunger twisted Scott's stomach hard enough that he had to grab a shoulder to stay upright. On the nearest egg, a chunk of shell slid off, flashing a glowing red eye underneath. The egg shuddered and cracked, spilling out a tangle of wet brown-green limbs. Other hatchlings nearby shouldered their way clear, shaking off the crumbled shell that still clung to them. 

"Scott! It's not working!" Stiles yelled, voice cracking on the last syllable. 

The first hatchling had moved on from the meat and was stalking toward the nearest person, a dark-haired girl from Smithcraft. She dodged back, but not fast enough. The green stumbled, claws raking across her shoulder and back. Blood spilled over the sand as she and the green both screamed. The dragon twisted to its feet, trapped in a tangle of its own awkward limbs. Stiles seized the moment and dragged the girl away. She was still screaming, clutching her shoulder. 

Other hatchlings were doing the same, ignoring the meat in favor of the live food. Scott twisted, shoving at the person behind him, shouting, "Back to the hold! It's not going to work—back to the hold!" He needn't have bothered; people were already screaming, rushing to escape the newborns. One of them, the mottled green-brown, swung its head, sending Kira tumbling rump over foot. 

Scott ran straight at it, knocking it off its feet before it could go after her again. It squawked, one of its wings smacking him in the face as it rolled, stuffing him down into the sand. He didn't have a change to wiggle free before its head was shoving into face. 

Joy blossomed in his chest, thick enough to choke on. Faceted red eyes swirled, shading to deep blue. They filled his vision, sucked him in until even the ache of a dragon on his chest was far away. 

_There you are,_ a cheerful girl's voice announced in his head. _Here I am. I'm Amorelith. Food?_

"Get off him!" Harper blue blurred through the air, and the pressure on Scott's chest vanished with a wave of _alarmpainfearconfusion_ that was just as bad. Stiles and Amorelith went down in a tangle, the little dragon fighting to escape and Stiles just making it worse by trying to beat it away. 

"No! Stop!" Scott threw himself into the pile, wrapping his arms around Stiles and dragging him back. The little dragon squalled and back-peddled away, crashing into a half-hatched green. 

"It's okay—Stiles it's _okay_ , she wasn't hurting me." That was a blatant lie; now that he had a moment, his ribs ached and creaked, probably cracked at best. But he could feel Amorelith, _knew_ the dragon would never hurt him on purpose. It anchored him down, gave him strength to ignore the pain as he pinned his best friend to the sand. "They don't want to hurt us." 

Almost all the rest of the eggs were hatched; they were surrounded by crying, unsteady hatchlings. The queen called loudest, her voice deep and heavy, even for her relatively tiny size. Scott's ears filled up with voices, some crying, some cheerful, all of them heavy with hunger.

The green that Amorelith had stumbled into arched her neck, staring down at them with a distinctly dissatisfied air. _I am Pthlarnth and you were on my boy,_ another, sharply feminine voice snapped.

"Scott—" Stiles swallowed, tilting his head back. His eyes were so wide that the amber was ringed with white. "Scott, I can hear her in my head. She says—" He shook his head, scowling suddenly. "That's not a name, that's the sound of something with a hairball."

" _You_ are the last one who gets to say things like that." Scott pushed to his feet, offering Stiles a hand up. He'd burned his knees and palms on the sand, a thousand specks of red-pink against his skin. The sting was ignorable for the moment, though, which would have to do. 

All around them hatchlings cried despairingly, waddling away from the piles of meat. Here and there, people were scattered in the eggs. Allison had wrapped herself around the queen, clinging to her neck. Another girl was trying to lure a blue toward one of the piles of wherry. Boyd and Erica had a bronze and a green standing over them, dancing in excited circles. Most of them, though, were still trapped at the foot of the dune, hemmed in by the wandering hatchlings. 

Cupping his hands, Scott shouted, "It's okay!" at the people still huddled for safety. "They're—" No, it wasn't safe, that wasn't the way to do this. "Come down and let them look at you!"

It was slow, but the people started to disperse. hatchlings, steadier now that they weren't so fresh from the shell, nosed around, peering around like they were looking for something. 

_Will you please feed me now?_ Amorelith tipped her head, edging behind Scott like he could protect her from Stiles. There was a patch of hide over her eye that wasn't quite solid, shading her overall mossy color to a darker brown that made her look like she had a hat on. _Please? I'm very hungry._ The green snapped at a wing, and Scott could _feel_ Amorelith's eye roll. _We're very hungry. Are you happy? Talk to your own boy, this one's mine._

_Mine's better anyway,_ Pthlarnth grumbled. _But I'm hungry too. Stiles?_

Stiles rubbed at her neck, looking over at Scott with a tight, almost desperate expression. "Does this mean we're dragon riders?"

_What else would it mean?_ Pthlarnth asked, bumping him with her nose. _We're dragons, you'll ride us. Simple._

_But they have to feed us first,_ Amorelith added plaintively. _I'm so hungry, Scott. So very hungry._

"Fine, fine, let's get you fed." Scott set thought to action by heading for the nearest pile of meat, Stiles right beside him. The dragons— _their_ dragons trailed behind, making sad noises all the while and thinking bitterly of starvation and bleached bones in the desert. 

They didn't stop whining until Scott and Stiles were shoving handfuls of icy wherry into their mouths. It was still chilled from having been in storage, but the hatchlings didn't seem to care. They didn't bother to chew, either, which Scott hoped wasn't going to make them choke. He had a feeling that trying to make them slow down would be a lost battle. 

The difference between them in his head was strange. Amorelith was _there_ , as solid as his own thoughts. Every emotion was laid out for him without effort. But when he wasn't concentrating, or she wasn't directing anything at him, Pthlarnth faded to a soft mutter, background noise along with the rest. 

While Amorelith was stuffing her face, Scott stole a quick look over at Stiles. "Can you hear that? Them?"

Stiles looked up at him, confused frown slowly turning into quiet amazement. "You mean... like the queen?" He edged closer, quickly shoving a handful of meat in Pthlarnth's face when she whined demandingly. "I just hear her. You should probably keep it to yourself."

"But the Weyrs—"

"It was a dragonman that did this," Stiles insisted. His hands slowed in filling Pthlarnth's gullet until she nudged him impatiently. 

"What are we going to do, then? Start our own Weyr?" Scott demanded, and then instantly regretted it. He could just _see_ the "why not" on Stiles' lips. "No. Maybe I won't tell them, all right? But we can't just _not_ be in a Weyr."

Amorelith made a cooing noise, slowly chewing her way through a bite big enough that her cheeks bulged. _What is a Weyr?_ she asked curiously. _I would go without one if you wanted. Whatever it is._

_I think we need one,_ was Pthlarnth's opinion, earning her a sullen look from Stiles. _It sounds important, and— oh, what is it now? I'm still eating!_

A sudden silence spread. As one, the hatchlings' heads craned skyward. 

The newly appearing stars vanished behind an arch of spread wings. A pair of dragons swept overhead, their riders mostly invisible in the twilight. They curved around, settling on the sand with lazy thuds. The riders slipped off, the smaller one darting for them as soon as her feet touched the sand.

"Allison!" 

"Lydia? How are you—" Allison stumbled through the sand, her gold following behind at a clumsy trot. They met halfway, crashing together in a pile of limbs that clung to each other, overseen by a nervously crooning queen. " _Lydia_! You're here! You're alive!"

" _You're_ alive! And you're here!" Lydia shook her head and shoved Allison to the ground. In the growing dark, Scott couldn't see her face, but the way she held on suggested that she wasn't going to let go.

"Where's Peter and Karenaeth?" a woman asked, raising her voice over the distance. The other riders slogged through the sand, glancing between faces half-expectantly. "I need— _shards_ , did they just hatch? Who's in charge here?" 

"Scott is!" Boyd yelled. "Over there!"

"I'm not in charge!" Scott protested immediately. Panic set in like a sudden storm. Chunks of meat scattered as he scrambled to find somewhere to duck out of sight. The dragons were quick to pick up the dropped meat, apparently unconcerned by the sand that had gotten on it.

"You're definitely in charge," Stiles corrected, kicking his ankle and grabbing Scott's shoulders to hold him in place. "Don't listen to him, he has a bad reaction to hubris."

"No. No, no, no, if anyone, it's Allison who's in charge." Scott tried to squirm free, but Stiles had a lifetime of experience with his tricks and caught them all. "I'm not..."

"Looks like you don't get a say." The woman was hard to make out in the dark, but she looked young. Older than them, but not very much so. She _sounded_ tired, though, voice dragging with heavy exhaustion. Somewhere far away he could feel an echo of what was in her voice. It was softer, more contained than any of the hatchlings—Scott thought it might be her dragon. "I'm Laura, rider of gold Chiereth from Fort Weyr. This isn't the way we usually do things." 

"I didn't think it was." Scott swallowed nervously, looking around. The other rider—a man, he thought—was headed for the hold, completely ignoring them. Crooning, Amorelith wiggled her way under his arm and, strangely, that made him feel better. He had her, and Stiles, and, in a way, Pthlarnth. Whatever was coming, they could face it together. "How _do_ you do it?"

"In a Weyr." He thought he caught the flicker of a smile. It was gone again in a blink. "But that will come soon enough. For now, I need answers, and you have them. Where's the dragonman? The one who kidnapped you all?"

Scott glanced over at Stiles to find him looking back. They grimaced at each other while Laura just waited, swaying slightly on her feet. 

"He's dead," Scott explained reluctantly, reaching for more meat rather than looking up. "We didn't kill him. He just..."

"He fell," Stiles finished. "From really high up."

Amorelith nudged the back of Scott's knees hopefully, making the meat slime across his arms when it started to slip in his grip. It didn't get far. She snatched it up before it could drop, swallowing it a single giant gulp. Her cheeks bulged as she reached to steal more from the pile. _Fine, if you're too busy..._

_Sorry_. "Sorry, I have to—"

"No, of course, feed— her?" When Scott nodded, Laura patted Amorelith's shoulder. Then she sighed. "Before he— did he... say anything? About what he was doing?"

They shook their heads. 

"Someone buried him over there." Stiles used a piece of meat to wave toward the other side of the nest, answering the question Scott hadn't wanted to ask. "There's rocks marking it. Isaac can show you. He probably didn't keep well, though." 

"Thank you." Laura frowned as she looked around the nest, especially at the last three hatchlings who were still wandering around, crying piteously. She didn't say anything, but when she turned back to Scott and Amorelith, her expression softened. "I introduced myself, but I don't think you did. What are your names?

"Um, we're— Scott, Healercraft Hall, and Stiles from Harper Hall—" Hard balls of nerves clenched in his throat, making it hard to breathe. 

Laura's smile softened into sympathy. She gripped their shoulders, giving them gentle little shakes. "Not anymore."

* * *

Do we have to go? I'm sleepy. Amorelith bumped her head against Scott's shoulder, eying the bigger dragons unhappily as they came and went. Torches had been brought in from somewhere, casting sharp shadows across the sand. Egg shells were still littered around, along with the remnants of the hatchlings' first meal. There wasn't much of it, just dirty cloth.

He rubbed at Amorelith's mottled neck, where her hide was starting to get dry and flaky. _We have to go now. They'll have food at the Weyr, remember?_

Yellow-green eyes swirled as she turned them on him. _But I'm not hungry now. I'm sleepy._

_I know. It won't be long._ Scott tried to keep his thoughts soothing, a counter to the thread of fear he could feel in Amorelith's voice, but it was surprisingly hard. He'd never had to police his own thoughts before. There'd never been anyone who would be affected by them. Now, he was surrounded by them. 

What had been empty desert had come alive with dragons. Their voices bounced around in his head, a constant murmur of sound just beyond actual audibility. Blues and greens ferried people in from the Weyr, apparently to entice the three hatchlings who hadn't picked a person yet, but none of the weyrfolk had any luck so far. 

Two queens curled up together in the middle of it all, the bigger one preening proudly over the hatchling as if it were her own. Once her dragon had finished swallowing everything in sight, Laura had cornered Allison. Scott had no idea what they were talking about, but it made Allison curl in on herself and the gold wrap a wing around her. Even Lydia's presence under her arm didn't seem to help.

More dragons, bronzes and browns, lurked at the edges of the torch light. They picked up hatchlings in their foreclaws, cradling them close to be carted back to the Weyr. It looked horribly unsafe, but the riders seemed certain. Not that Scott was sure he trusted the riders, but they didn't have much choice. There was no way they could stay at the Hold, and if he went back to the Craft Hall, they'd just send him and Amorelith back to the Weyr.

"Scotty!" Stiles waved as he and his green made their way around the mess of egg shells. Her eyes were bright blue as she tromped in Stiles' wake; compared to Amorelith, she didn't seem at all bothered by having to stay awake for the trip to the Weyr. "The blue rider said we're up next, and if we're not here when the dragon gets back someone else will take our place, and they'll leave us to starve in the desert."

Both dragons' heads came up, feelings of utter devastation raking through them. _They wouldn't. Would they?_ Amorelith asked, whining softly. _I'm not hungry now, but I will be. I don't want to starve!_

"They won't leave anyone to starve," Scott told his dragon, scratching at another dry patch. There were a lot of them starting to spring up. "I promise, they're just joking."

"I don't know, Cora seemed pretty serious," Stiles said, ignoring Scott's warning grimace. "I think she hates us." 

_Stop being such a snit,_ Pthlarnth said, poking Amorelith in the shoulder with her nose. _The rider said there's oil at the Weyr to stop the itching._

Amorelith rolled her shoulders, some of the alarm fading from her thoughts. _I am very itchy... _

_See? So stop it._ With a huff, the green curled around Amorelith, stretching out one of her wings to drape over her shoulder. 

They settled in between their dragons, in the tiny gap of space between the forelimbs and ribs, knees bent to fit. Feeling Amorelith's steady, slow breaths relaxed Scott in ways he didn't know were possible. He could actually feel the tension easing from his shoulders and back, his dragon's thoughts a soothing counterpoint to his own. 

It was almost over. A little longer, and they could rest. Everything else would come later. 

Across the way, Stiles settled in, twisting so that he could use his dragon's shoulder as a pillow. "Didn't think we'd ever be here, did you?" he asked, eyes slipping closed. "Dragons!" 

"Dragons," Scott agreed, heaving a sigh. Becoming a rider had never been in his plans, not like some people. But the gentle warmth of Amorelith's thoughts against his made it impossible to regret. He loved her, and she loved him, and they'd just have to figure it out from there. 

The dragons had nearly given in to sleep by the time a dragon rider tromped up from behind a mess of cranky hatchlings, skirting an outstretched wing with a practiced sidestep. "I'm Derek, on Niath. Are you two ready?" he asked sharply, leaning over the dragons to look down in the crevasse between them. "Your girls probably want to get oiled up and to sleep."

Amorelith untangled herself from her knot of limbs and wings in a leap, leaving Scott to flop onto his back as she abandoned him. _Sleep! Itches! Let's go!_ With an over-eager bound, she rushed past a knot of other hatchlings, sending them tumbling into the sand with outraged squeals. She paused just long enough to assure herself that no one was hurt before continuing her dive toward the big bronze. _Come on, Scott!_

A smile cracked the Derek's face as he barely missed being bowled over. "Eager, isn't she?" Leaning down, he wrapped one giant hand around Scott's skinny bicep and yanked him upright with a single solid pull. "What's your name?" 

He grunted as he stumbled forward, almost landing on his face in the sand. "Scott. And she's Amorelith." 

Derek's smile got just a little wider. It didn't look like he did it much, so that was probably as good as it would get. "Welcome, Scott and Amorelith. And you?" 

Scott turned just in time to watch his best friend slowly turn red from his shirt collar to the top of his ears. His dragon watched him with a look that was somehow both smug and amused. There was a bump of a pause and then a sullen, "Stiles." 

Like a desert mirage, Derek's smile vanished. "Your _real_ name. And hers. We're riders. We don't hide who we are, ever." 

Stiles winced before he squeezed out, "Przemysł. And she's Pthlarnth. I think."

The dragon in question sniffed and curled her tail around Stiles' legs. _Close enough._

"Prez... and Pah..." Derek's lips worked, visibly trying to wrap them around the names. "You..." His shoulders slumped in defeat. "Fine. Stiles it is. Come on. Niath's this way."

Niath was a bronze waiting at the edge of the hatching sands. Pthlarnth and Amorelith danced around his head, bumping into his elbow and gnawing on his claws. The bigger dragon sighed and dropped his head down, watching them with heavy resignation. 

_If you two will stop bouncing around, we'll leave that much faster,_ he grumbled, nosing at them pointedly. _I can't pick you up like this._

Immediately the hatchlings went still, craning their heads back, wings folded tight against their sides. Snorting, Niath carefully reached down to wrap his foreclaws around them, tucking their legs in against his palms. 

"Have either of you ridden a dragon?" Derek asked, lifting himself up onto the dragon's forearm before turning to offer a hand. 

"Sort of," Stiles muttered, grabbing the offered hand and yanking himself up so hard he nearly fell off the other side. He ripped out of Derek's hold as he wobbled, arms waving for balance. 

Derek grabbed the back of Stiles' shirt before he wobbled too far again. His eyes narrowed. "I thought you looked familiar. You're the one who brought Lydia to the Weyr."

Stiles flailed to grab Derek's jacket. "Yes? Was that okay? Did I do something wrong? Is—"

"Good job." Derek pitched his voice to rise above Stiles' increasingly desperate questions. "If it weren't for that, we wouldn't have found you."

There was a pause while Stiles stared at him, and then he was leaping up the straps, climbing the dragon like he did it every day.

"Really?" Scott asked, hoisting himself up once that there was free space to be had. "How are you so sure? Maybe we would have found a way."

"Trust me." Derek jerked his chin toward the straps with an expectant look. "Well?"

Scott took the hint. He'd never really climbed anything like a dragon before, but the straps had plenty of loops and places to hang onto when he got too tired.

_You'll have to do better when you climb me,_ Amorelith reminded him. He could feel her head pressed against the inside of Niath's palm, which she was using to scratch an itch. _Once I'm big, I mean._

_Oh, are you going to get big?_ Scott finished the climb, falling in behind Stiles with a wheeze. They leaned against each other, Scott's head forward and Stiles' head back. _I thought you were going to stay small forever._

_No, I'm going to get big, and then I'll be the one to fly you places._ Derek swung up behind Scott, not even a little winded from the climb. Amorelith's thoughts turned sharp, angry. _He'd better be careful with you. You're my rider! No poaching!_

Niath's laugh tickled the back of Scott's head, loud enough that he nearly missed the clicks as Derek buckled him and Stiles in. Then muscles were bunching under his legs, giving him just enough warning to grab Stiles' waist before Niath sprang for the sky. 

The lurch wasn't nearly as bad as it was when he'd been taken by Peter. His seat shifted, but the straps held, and there wasn't the same sort of snap that had yanked him around before. The ground dropped away, torches fading to a golden twinkle. Amorelith crooned, enjoying the wind on her hide. Derek and Stiles were two warm spots, shielding him from the worst of it, but it didn't take Scott's nose long to go numb. 

And then the world went away. 

It was nothing. Endless nothing. No light, no sound. He couldn't breathe, couldn't even feel the dragon under him, or the people on either side. 

Just when he'd started to panic, Amorelith nudged up against his thoughts, an anchor in the darkness. _Scott?_ she murmured. _I think I'm hungry again._

He was still trying to laugh when they burst back into open air.

* * *

Derek took one last walk through the weyrling barracks, stumbling a little as he did. He was so exhausted that he was sick to his stomach, but he wouldn't be comfortable until he'd checked on them. No one had ever taken a clutch of freshly hatched dragons _between_ before, much less _between_ whens and wheres together. He couldn't even ask his dragon to keep an eye on them, since Niath was sleeping off the effort of going _between_ so many times in a short span. 

To his tired eye, the hatchlings seemed well. Their hides gleamed with fresh oil, and their stomachs were still bulging with meat. They'd settled two and three to a couch, some of them forgoing the stone altogether to sleep in a pile with their new riders. Blue and green and brown tangled together over in one corner, while Kira and her bronze had spread out across a collection of blues like a tent. The gold wrapped around them all like a barricade with Allison and Lydia tucked against her belly. _That_ was fairly unusual, but he'd seen the pallets back at the hold. Dragons were sensitive; if their riders had started sharing sleeping space for comfort, the hatchlings wouldn't have thought to question it. 

Scott and his friend with the odd name were the only ones who'd taken the center aisle in front of the entrance to the barracks, wedged together between their dragons with barely a finger width of space to spare. Shaking his head, Derek stepped over their tails, twisting to keep from accidentally nudging them awake. It took work and balancing on one foot, but he managed to edge the door open and slip out without stepping on anything. 

Outside the breeze was brisk. Not so much as to cut through his riding gear, but enough to make him wake up a little. Dawn hadn't lit the eastern horizon yet, but he could feel it coming in the air, a slight change as the world started to rouse itself. Rubbing his hands, Derek sprinted across the bowl to the entrance to the lower caverns. 

The people there were already preparing for the coming dawn, putting bread in the ovens, making batches of klah for tired riders. One of the workers started to swing his way with a large, steaming mug, but he waved the man off. The last thing he needed was something to keep him awake. 

Barely holding back a yawn, Derek made for the stairs.

"Hold up!" 

He missed the first step, teeth clicking together as his entire body was jarred by the unexpected stop. "Laura," he sighed, rubbing his eyes. "What are you—" 

She linked her arm through his before he could turn and give her a piece of his admittedly exhausted mind. "I just finished talking to Weyrling Master Finstock," she explained, tugging him up the steps. "He's going to give the new batch a few days to settle in. That'll give me time to contact their parents. I don't know how we'll explain the nine month gap." 

"Better you than me." Derek glanced over at her. "You know who Scott's mother is, right?" 

"You know who _Allison's_ mother is, right?" When Derek just raised his eyebrows, Laura grinned, tight and feral. "Maybe if you hear where she's from. Ruatha."

Tired as he was, it only took a moment for that to sink through Derek's skull. "Lady Victoria's missing daughter," he groaned, cupping his forehead in his free hand. 

"One and the same." 

"Perfect," Derek muttered. Lady Victoria was hard enough to deal with on a good day. She and her Lord husband never liked working with riders, and her father-in-law had made it obvious more than once that he'd have been happy to send every dragon to a small island if they didn't need them. "As if we didn't have enough problems."

"We have problems?" Laura laughed, low and bitter. "Chiereth's almost definitely the next to rise." 

Annoyance at his sister faded away into aching misery, a tight knot forming under his breastbone. He'd been so busy, he hadn't had time to remember what had sent him _between_ times to start with. "You'll be a good Weyrwoman."

She flashed him a small, sad smile. "Never good enough." 

They finished the climb in mutual silence, both of them lost to their own thoughts. When they reached their level, it was mostly dark, with the exception of a glow coming from under their father's door at the far end of the hall. At the sight of it, Derek winced in guilt. For a rider, their dragon was everything, but Talia and Dracen had been weyrmates longer than most. Derek could only imagine what it was like to have that sort of connection to another person and then to lose it.

When he started to walk past his weyr toward the light, Laura grabbed his arm. "Don't," she said quietly, shaking her head. "Let him be. He still has to be Weyrleader tomorrow without her."

Derek craned his head to look at the light. "How long until Chiereth rises?" 

"Soon." One of Laura's arms draped over his shoulders, propelling him toward his own weyr. "I had some wine sent up for you to help you sleep." 

"You think I'll need it?" 

"I think it can't hurt." 

The door eased open with a creak of hinges rarely used; he came in with Niath more than on foot. Inside fresh glowbaskets littered the main room, casting a soft white light. Two wooden goblets and the promised skin of wine sat in the middle of the table, fresh enough from the ice room that condensation beaded on its metal fixings. Niath's tail curved into the room, tip twitching.

Wine was probably a terrible idea; he was ready to pass out without it. Regardless, he shrugged out of his sister's hold and poured for them both, working on automatic. Some of it splashed from the way his hands shook. 

For once, Laura didn't seize the chance to tease. She raised her cup, giving Derek a second to match before saying, "To Talia, Karenaeth and the new pairs. May they have already had the adventure of their lives." 

As Derek downed his drink, he tried not to think of how unlikely that wish was to be granted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The character deaths are Peter, Talia and Talia's dragon. Only the dragon dies of suicide, and none of the deaths are graphically depicted.


End file.
